


By Trial And Error

by caffeinatedmusing



Series: The Care and Feeding of Vampires [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Background Relationships, Berserkers, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Canon-Typical Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Geralt runs a school, Getting to Know Each Other, Monsters, Multi, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Other, Philosophizing, Portals, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Roche helps, Sarcasm, Self-Reflection, Slow Burn, Tags to be added as needed, Team Bonding, Team as Family, The Witcher Lore, Toussaint (The Witcher), Witcher Contracts, learning from past mistakes, returning to civilian life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2020-08-23 19:20:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 45,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20197486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeinatedmusing/pseuds/caffeinatedmusing
Summary: Vernon Roche is in Toussaint helping Geralt set up his new school. The new students might be a promising bunch if only they can fall in line and develop some real discipline. But Toussaint is way too pretty to be trusted and Vernon Roche does not get on well with his new partner. Between struggling to find out just who he is and what worth he might have in a post military life he never expected to live, battling nightmares about the things he's done, and coming to understand the Witcher's larger reality about the world, he certainly has his work cut out for him. The learning curve is steep...Mistakes are the best teachers, after all.





	1. The Wrong Foot

"Watch your footwork!" Vernon Roche shouted from where he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the first batch of hopefuls for Geralt's new school train some basic sword drills. 

Geralt glanced over from where he'd been correcting another's form. The two men exchanged a look of exasperation before they each went back to their respective observations.

A breath of wind swirled away the dust rising around the practicing students. They'd been out here most of the afternoon and the sun this far south was stronger than Roche was accustomed to. Sweat dripped down foreheads, stained shirts, and stung in eyes, despite the cool temperature of early spring. 

"All right, that's enough for today! Everyone stow your gear away, get some water, and go get cleaned up. Same time, tomorrow."

The students heaved collective sighs of relief and filed out towards the bunk houses, stretching weary limbs. Conversation and laughter rose as they moved away from the instructors, a sure sign they weren't quite as tired out as they pretended to be. Roche shook his head as Geralt headed his way.

"What do you think of them?" the witcher asked.

"No army in training, that's for damn sure." Roche spared a backward glance at the retreating group. "But not what you need in any case. Truth? I'm seeing a lot of poor form, impatience, and timing issues. I don't think any of them have seen a real fight. What do they train knights in Toussaint for, anyway?"

"For show, mostly. Unless there's a war, they fight in tournaments, for prizes and favors. Maybe they get a wealthy enough patron and then they work for that person, body guard or household security sort of thing. Other than that, they go on quests. But no, none of these kids have been to war and most have never killed anything more dangerous than a stray dog."

"Quests? What is that? Like a contract?" 

Geralt made a face. 

"No. They pick something for themselves. The more legendary and dangerous, the better. They want the best story to tell. Its about impressing people."

"In other words, useless." Roche turned and spit to clear the dust and the taste of disappointment from his mouth. 

"In most cases. They're great when you need a line of heavy cavalry, but beyond that..." Geralt agreed. "We didn't specify any prior training requirements. I wanted a mixed group. Don't know how well that'll turn out. It might be something we choose to adjust later."

"My individual impressions?" Roche waited for Geralt's nod to continue; 

"Pol's most in danger from his own two feet. That ones a scholar if I've ever seen one. Duval and Sebastien need to be separated or they'll just keep reinforcing each others bad habits. Sebastien also strikes me as an arrogant know- it- all and if that doesn't get knocked out of him soon it'll run him into trouble. Corbin kept his range and his footwork is solid. He just needs to break out of needing to be told what to do all the time. Sam is eager and a quick learner, despite having no prior experience. A good student, if nothing else. And Lissette....Lissette is here shopping for a husband. I give her until the end of the week before she washes out."

"I agree about most of that. Not sure about Lissette, though. She might be made of sterner stuff. And Pol just overthinks things. We'll keep mixing them up; I don't want people getting set into routines."

"Geralt, she spent all day sneering at Ves and pouted when she realized she'd have to get dirty. If she bats her eyelashes at Duval any harder, the damn things will fly off her face and smack him. And who wears makeup and perfume to spend all day sweating in the dust?" 

Most of their prospectives were younger sons from a variety of wealthy houses who were either knights, or wanted to become knights. He could understand their interest in something like this. But a girl like that? 

"I know a sorceress or two who would do exactly that and still be able to kill you before you knew what hit you. I've stopped questioning it. If she leaves, we'll be down a student, that's all."

"I don't know, Geralt." Roche sighed. "Women just aren't built for this kind of thing. It's too strenuous, their moods make them harder to teach, and she'll have no practical use for any of this when she settles down. Ves is mostly an exception but even she's had her moments. And at the end of the day, given all the same training, they just can't hit as hard."

Geralt had stopped walking and was staring at him with one white eyebrow quirked up in some odd cross of doubt and humor and something Roche couldn't quite place. Someone cleared their throat directly behind him. He turned in time to catch an impression of thick hair and eyes slitted in anger. Something blurred at him, fast. 

The impact was solid and lifted him up, driving the air out. Gravity was not where he knew it to be.

His stomach felt like it had been ruptured, then permanently pasted against his backbone. The first few breathes he managed to suck in burned tears into his eyes.

Vernon squinted up at the silhouette of the woman he then understood had overheard and punched him flat from where he wallowed, sprawled in the dirt, trying not to retch. 

"Vernon Roche, meet Anna McCready." He could hear the humor in Geralt's voice. The witcher was laughing at him over this, damn him. "Anna, this is Vernon. You'll be working together."

"Work with him, now? Shite in a bucket. Are you sure he's up for it? Seems a little faint on his feet to me."

_What was that accent? _

She was about Ves' height. Broader. _Stronger_. Sun bleached hair wound up into some sort of messy braided knot thing. Sun-tanned. Freckles. Her eyes were the color of a roiling storm cloud. 

As he regained his feet, he noticed faint lines around her eyes and mouth. Her hair wasn't just sun faded, it was mixed with threads of silvery white. Her height and the way she was dressed in pants and an overlarge mens shirt had made him think _younger_ at first ....but this woman was probably about his age. 

Work with her? What had she just said? 

_Shite in a bucket, indeed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else disappointed that Geralt didn't get to so much as call Roche out in W2 when he makes that gross comment about Triss being on her period because she disagrees with him? *sigh* Yeah. Me too. Maybe he can learn to do a bit better. One stomach punch at a time. 
> 
> Also, I'm working on two separate fics in two separate fandoms rn in a concerted slightly manic effort to knock the rust of my writing habits... since it might backfire and one or both might end up being crap. Consider yourselves warned. Now, characters have met- on with the story! 
> 
> As always- take care of yourselves and thanks for reading this thing. Whatever it is.


	2. Thanks For The Drink

Anna knew how to use a sword, at least. 

They trained together in the evenings after the regular class had been dismissed for the day. Geralt had them working on more advanced stuff and researching different types of monsters after dinner. It was interesting stuff. Or would have been; if only they didn't clash on nearly every topic.

Roche's structured military background was the opposite, seemingly, of hers. She fought like a whirlwind, fast strikes, lots of sidesteps, and a defense built from going on the offense and never letting up. He caught himself backpedaling until he ended up on his ass in the dirt more often than he was comfortable with. It had been awhile since he'd trained one on one like this, not having to have an awareness of everyone around him, of an entire battlefield. And damn her, but she could hit pretty damn hard. He had the bruises to prove it. 

And damn him, but Geralt seemed to know that Vernon didn't want to hit her. Women were not supposed to be military targets. The elves had never differentiated on the field of battle, their women fought just as often as their men. And it had cost them something awful. Roche's younger command days had seen bloodbaths the likes of which he never wanted to recall much less live through again.

He knew, of course, that there were exceptions. Ves and the edge his old unit had acquired because of her. She could infiltrate in ways men never could, solely because his male opponents suffered from an unwillingness to see women as equal threats and fight them accordingly. But if he actually had that same blind spot? _Has? Had?_

Roche shook his head to chase the confusion away. He'd been wondering why Geralt would pair them off together. Maybe it was to test his resolve? Maybe he'd have to battle a rogue sorceress or a track an elven spy or something. He didn't agree to come down here, to train, to help train, only to get his ass handed to him by some woman. 

The next training session, he determined to prove it. He waited until she came into his range. They'd been going about, back and forth, boots scuffing in the dust, for hours. Geralt had taught them a complex variation on a hanging parry meant to disarm and had been drilling them on it all evening. 

Anna had gotten in fewer hits, struggling with the new series. Roche had gotten in a few more as a result, though not as cleanly as he had wanted. Seeing her hesitate, he began goading her. Taunting. Insulting. Exulting in the rage he saw building up in her.

On one pass, he saw his moment. He shifted his weight, driving her back a step, then another. He flew through the series and grinned when he felt his crossguard catch against hers the way it was supposed to. He pulled her weapon from her hand. Stepped in closer, bound her arm and with another step and a twist, threw across his hip to the ground. He followed her down, pinning her to prevent her reaching for the stray sword, laying in the dirt nearby.

Grinning down into her face from so close, he watched her pupils dilate, running dark and then shrinking back to pinpoints. 

_Weird._

She hadn't moved. Hadn't tapped out, or said anything. In fact, she was rigid beneath him. And shaking? Her lip began to curl back in a sneer, a vibration rising that sounded almost as though she was snarling at him. _What the hell?!_

His grin faltered. 

"Roche! Let her up!" Geralt's voice barked through the alarm trickling through his gut."Now."

He shifted his weight back and surged to his feet. "Sorry. Are you alright?" _Was she hurt? Had she fallen on a rock or something?_ Stomach feeling cold and heavy, he waited for the blood to start seeping. Nothing did.

Yet Anna didn't move. She lay stiff and staring at the sky. When he moved to check on her, Geralt stopped him. 

All of a sudden, she jumped to her feet, something in her hand. Roche tensed and flinched as the flung dagger flashed past and buried itself in a tree just behind him.

Anna whirled and stalked off. 

"What the fuck?!" He turned to Geralt for answers. "This is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about. Crazy bitches, the lot of them."

The witcher was staring at the blade still quivering in the wood next to Roche's head.

"Why were you armed?" The question was soft but Roche didn't miss the undercurrent of disagreement.

"Oh. Force of habit. I must have forgotten."

"Roche, we don't wear sharps on the training field. You know that."

"Like I said, I forgot. I've had that dagger on me every day for the last, hell if I know, decades, by now. Saved my life more than once." He moved to pull the blade from the wood only to find it was stuck fast.

"Roche."

"What?"

"You've been vocal enough about your disapproval of women in general and of Anna in particular. Tonight, you went after her with a vengeance just to show that you could. And you were wearing a live blade when you did it."

"I don't understand."

"In order to work together, I need you to be able to trust one another. You just put her in a position to fear she may need to defend herself against you. She thinks you mean to harm her."

A cold wash of sick horrible understanding rippled through him. 

"Shit." He had fucked up. _What if she was like Ves?_ "I'll go and explain. Apologize."

"No. Wait for her to calm down. When she's ready to talk, see if you can't work things out."

"Right."

Geralt had him reset then and stepped in so they continued the training session as though nothing had happened.

When he got back to his cabin, he cracked open a bottle of cheap whiskey and poured a stiff drink. After today's debacle, he could do with it. How badly had he screwed things up for Geralt? 

'I need you to work together...' sounded like the witcher had something planned beyond just this school. Roche hoped he hadn't thrown too big a wrench into whatever else might be going on. But he also wished that Geralt trusted him enough to tell him about whatever that was. Whole thing could've been avoidable, damn it.

His musings were disturbed by a sharp knock on the door. He was more than mildly surprised to find Anna on the porch. She had washed; her damp hair was back in a long braid over one shoulder. She was dressed this time in a loose patch-worked pair of mens trousers and a dingy white blouse tied with a faded sash about the waist. Her face was clean scrubbed; she had no makeup on. She was probably the sort of woman who eschewed the stuff. He was more accustomed to whores whose painted faces were a mark of their trade. 

Her eyebrows rose expectantly. He frowned.

"You really haven't got any manners at all, then, have you?" She prompted.

"....Oh, shit, sorry." He winced, belatedly realizing that he had been standing in the doorway and hadn't invited her in or greeted her or acknowledged her at all other than to look her over. _Right. Rude. He was being rude._

"Come in, please." 

Her gaze dropped to the dagger back in his belt. He removed it and tossed it onto the butchers block in the kitchen. 

"Geralt reminded me about the no live blades rule. I forgot I had the thing on me." 

His hands felt wrong now that they were empty. Awkward. He cast about for what to do. There was something else people were supposed to do in this situation..._Oh, right._

"Can I offer you a drink? I haven't got anything to water it down but I think I have a clean glass here somewhere."

"I'm from Skellige. We mostly drink it straight from the bottle there."

"Right. Of course." He occupied himself finding the glass and pouring. _Skellige._ So that's what her accent was.

They sipped together in silence for a bit. Anna was looking around his cabin. Bare walls, no furniture. A crate of empty bottles near the door that hadn't been taken out yet. Nothing personal save for a few items of clothing draped over a drying rack near the hearth and his sword. He should probably get some things, maybe more chairs? A bookshelf? He wasn't sure what he wanted, or would really use, those things for.

"I talked to Geralt a bit after what happened this afternoon."Anna set her drink down. "I came to apologize. I nearly killed you and that's not why I came here or what Geralt needs from me, so... I shouldn't have thrown your dagger at your head. I'm sorry."

_Wait, what? This was backwards. He was supposed to...._

"_You_ nearly killed _me_?" 

"Aye. Nearly put that stupid dagger right into your thick skull. Not that you'd have noticed. Only thing stopping me was Geralt given me that look said I shouldn't disrespect his hospitality like that. But if we'd've been alone...." When her eyes meet his again, they're bright with something like rage or warning. Roche has seen that look before. It always portended violence.

"...I haven't exactly been giving you an easy time of it. Geralt seems to think I was bullying you tonight."

"Were you?"

That had his eyebrows up again. Was she asking him or was she saying....?

"Bullying you? I....maybe a bit." He conceded. 

"Why do you hate women so much?"

"I do not hate...."

"Aye. You do. You think we're dumber than men, slower than men, helpless and belongin' at home with a bunch o wee bairns clinging to our skirts."

"I've never said...."

"You've said plenty. Not all with words but it's in your voice when you speak about us or to us and its in your body language. I've watched you spar with Geralt and the others. You tense up training against me in a way you don't with them. You're holding back cause you think, what, that I'm going to get hurt and you're going to have to explain yourself to my daddy?"

"No, I don't think that. I...."

"I have the same right to be here that anyone else has. And if I don't meet with the standards, then it'll be Geralt who tells me to go, not you. And not because I was born with something different in my pants that what you've got."

"Why do you want to be here?" Roche found himself wondering in spite of it all.

"Why does anyone? Witcher's are some of the most renowned fighters, but also some of the most mysterious. A chance to see beneath the surface of that, to learn more? Why are you here, then, since we're playin' conversational?"

"I was at Kaer Morhen with Geralt when the Wild Hunt came through." He opted for honesty. "I've seen enough now to know that there are still things we can't explain. And like you said, the chance to learn more. How did you meet Geralt?"

"He comes out to the Isles on occasion. Last time, it was women who were dyin'. Being ripped apart. They thought Leshen, or maybe werewolf. I wasn't so sure."

"What did you think it was?"

"A man."

Something about the sad, almost wistful, way she said it tripped Roche's Special Forces interrogation training into active duty again.

"You knew him." 

"My cousin."

"What happened?" He amended, "If you don't mind my asking?"

"Executed." There was a moment of hesitation before she said that and he guessed that execution was a simplification of something else. He didn't want to ask. He'd heard a few stories about Skellige. The sort that suggested the people there went in for their own brand of mob justice rather than go through a magistrate or anything so formal as a court.

"Do you hate men?" He asked her.

"Aye. Sometimes. Too often you're the monsters and having to go to another man to beg help when that's the case don't sit right with me. Too often those men are like you."

"And just what am I like?" He bristled; the animosity was back and even he could here it in his own voice then.

Unfazed, Anna gestured with her drink around at the empty room all about them.

"You don't like women, we've established that. Got a temper. Ex-military." _Ex_. She said it so matter of fact that he flinched a bit at hearing it. "You threw your whole life into your rank and title." 

"Never married. No children. Used to being in charge. All that's gone now that the wars ending and you lost. So you're a bit of a wounded animal, lashing out to make sure you keep what little authority you've got left. " 

"You don't know how to socialize." She leaned in and kicked the cabinet under the butcher block for emphasis. Bottles inside rattled. "And you're drinking too much."

_How....Who did this bitch think she was?_

"What in hells name gave you any of those ideas?" He stood, temper rising. "We didn't lose...We...I am not..."

He trailed off, uncertain about what he was more angry over; being so thoroughly summed up in such sparse terms, or his own pain over the events of his recent past, or just how he had lost control of this conversation already. He felt as if he were being interrogated. The backwards nature of the entire exchange was getting out of hand.

"Settle yourself down. Losin' ain't always the same as bein' wrong. I don't think what you did for your country was wrong. You held out and forced Nilfgaard to offer terms. As for the rest....most people bring furniture when they move; books, plates, art. You know, the sorts of things they've collected throughout their lives. You've got nothing. Never lived in a house of your own. You drink your dinner, mend your own clothes and you don't care about washing up; bachelor. Rest was a guess."

"A guess? From some spinster harpy who thinks every man is against her because she was never pretty enough to merit their attention? When Geralt runs you out of here, it'll be over a stunt like that and not because of 'what is in your pants', never you worry."

"Geralt's the one who taught me that. Are you angry at him, too, now?" 

"No, I am...." He caught himself. "I am not going to fall for your attempts to bait me into further argument. And don't expect me to hold back in training anymore."

"Thank you. That was all I wanted." She smiled in false sweetness and rose to leave. "Glad we could have this little chat. Thanks for the drink."

She tossed the last of her whiskey down and showed herself out, leaving Roche wondering what the hell had just happened and why he felt as if a whirlwind had just rushed through his life. When he turned back to his drink, it was empty. So was hers...

She, apparently, had finished hers while talking. It was his that she had so casually killed off before leaving.

_Huh._

He topped himself back off and left the bottle. _She's going to be a righteous pain in my arse. _

He wondered just how insufferable she would end up being and if he could persuade Geralt that whatever the witcher needed him for, that he ought to work with someone else. 

Assuming there was anyone else.

After chewing on her observations some more, however, he was forced to admit she was right. He really ought to get some bookcases or something. _Hell, when was the last time he'd even read a book?_

He resolved, while washing up the dishes, to find a bookstore the next time he ended up in the city.


	3. Cloudwrack

It was around midnight when Vernon Roche woke up. His heart was pounding, though he couldn't pinpoint what had awakened him. He lay in bed for long moments, trying to force sleep to return. 

No such luck.

Giving up, he dressed, got his armor on and his weapons belted. So long as he couldn't sleep, he might as well check the property. Geralt's estate wasn't bounded by any sort of fencing or wall. Not even so much as a gate up to the drive.

He'd gotten an odd look from the Witcher when he'd pointed that out. If it were attacked, Corvo Bianco had no defensibility stronger than an old grove of olive trees and its uneven terrain. He'd been surprised to find, after seeing them set up defenses at the ruining castle of Kaer Morhen, that Geralt chose to do nothing to increase his protections here.

Outside, a sliver of moon ghosted along on a thin bed of cloudwrack. Trees budded but not yet in leaf braced dark against the sky. Alert, nerves edged for any danger, he paced along the gravel drive down to the road and then swung around into the fields at the small cairn of stones that marked the boundary of Geralts property with the next parcel of land. Every so often, he would stop and listen. 

A sudden motion in the grass had him dropping into guard, blade drawn. 

The rabbit paused to nibble down a leaf, then, when Roche straightened, it took off across the fields. He relaxed, scoffing at himself for startling over an animal that could not have posed less danger. He nearly jumped out of his own skin a moment later whan a voice spoke from close by.

"I do hope you aren't attempting to rid us of this years rabbits just yet. Marlene has a wonderful stew recipe, if they come to too much trouble. I must say, for myself, I'm rather fond of them. Despite how much damage they do to the gardens."

Regis stepped from seemingly nowhere. Roche startled again, keeping his blade leveled. 

"Oh, dear. I've frightened you. I'm so sorry. I suppose my habit of being outdoors at night must seem odd. " He gestured to the basket at his feet and Roche came to understand that the man had been crouched down, cutting some plant material from a nearby shrub, his outline blending into it's shadow until he'd stood, which was how Roche had missed him in the dark. "These are at peak potency for harvesting and as the warmth of the sun will evaporate the essential oils, it is best harvested at night. So, my insomnia serves some use."

"You didn't frighten me." Roche cleared his throat and lied, sheathing his blade.

"I did. Perfectly natural response." Regis went back to trimming plant material, using a small curved blade to nick off the buds and new growth. "It doesn't take a Witcher to see that."

"How the....Is everyone here some kind of seer all of a sudden?" The man hadn't even been looking at him beyond that first glance.

"Nonsense. I was a barber surgeon by profession, for many years. I've kept up on my medical training. Surely your unit had one, as well?"

"We did. Fine fellow. Shot down while trying to pull a wounded man off the field. Things went to hell after that and he was never replaced." Despite his anxiety, Roche found himself drawn over. There was something about Regis' tone of voice; it was soothing just to listen to him talk. And to learn he was a fellow veteran..."Where did you serve?"

"Oh, I was with the 42nd Infantry out of Brugge. This was many, many years ago, now." Regis waved away the details.

"You seem about as 'retired' as Geralt is." It was a guess, but Regis struck Roche as being fit and quick of reflex, not to mention of mental faculty, if he was keeping up with the Witcher. And working in the middle of the night. 

"Alas, I am more so. I restrict myself to herbalism, alchemy, a bit of brewing, and a bit of inventing these days. Although, of course, my services as barber surgeon are always available. I daresay Geralt can attest to my skill with needle and tincture."

"Glad someone is looking after him; I've seen some of his scars. Not sure how he's still alive, to be honest."

"Hm. It is my very good fortune that he is. And I hope to keep him thus for as long as possible. But, now perhaps you'll indulge me? As you're no herbalsit, what pray tell, are you doing out here in the dead of night, besides hunting rabbits?"

"...Something woke me up. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd walk a bit." 

"A walk can have marvelous restorative and centering properties for those of restive mind. I don't know that I'd have recommended it be done in full armor, however."

"I thought, in case..." It sounded stupid now. "Force of habit. I suppose."

"And the elevated adrenal response to that poor unfortunate herbivore, which is now the only thing in the area with a heart rate higher than yours?"

"Startled me, was all." Roche sat down on a nearby log and pulled his flask. "Maybe all Geralt's assignments about the types of things that live out here are going to my head. When I first woke up, it was sudden, and I thought maybe a sound had done it. Something I hadn't really registered. So, I thought, what's the harm in going out and having a look?"

"Ah, a fellow insomniac. I find I do not require as much sleep at my age." _Or at all_, but Roche didn't need to know that just yet. "However, Geralt is rather fond of his, and I don't wish to wake him. So, I occupy my time in quiet, contemplative activities. If you're interested, there are some exercises I could teach you; breathing, counting, and stretching, that can be conducive to relaxing. I find the peacefulness and cool night air helpful as well."

"Oh, no, you needn't bother. I'll be fine." He took a swig and offered the flask to Regis, who declined.

"Spoken like a true commander; yourself, after and only, if all else has been taken care of. Am I right?"

"...Yes."

"Well, all else has been. So at some point, I should like to see you at your convenience, seeing as you've been bereft of a barber surgeon's practicalities for some time. Perhaps we can find a solution to your sleeplessness that doesn't involve wandering the property at all hours and threatening to skewer innocent wildlife or lurking herbalists, hm? And I suspect it's been even longer that you've been neglecting your own health."

"I don't suppose there's any way I can get out of this, is there?"

"No." Regis collected his basket of clippings and walked with Roche back up to the house; leaving the former commander of the Blue Stripes on his front porch feeling a bit like a foolish lad who'd been caught out after curfew and escorted home by the authorities, though what about the herbalist gave him that impression, he couldn't precisely say. 

He went back inside, took off his armor, drained his flask and took a bottle from the cabinet and drank several deep swallows from that before making another attempt at getting to sleep. He kept his sword close by, just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the 42 infantry out of Brugge....250+ yrs ago......
> 
> I love making shit up for backstories. I did learn that barber surgeons were, in real world history, attached to the military and were only available to the private sector when their services weren't required by king and country. 
> 
> And here we see Roche's ptsd starting to show. It made sense to me that he would have been able to focus on the war and keeping others alive and so his symptoms might have made more 'sense' in that context with people not really noticing much difference that they couldn't chalk up to environment. Now he's someplace relatively safe, he's got food, shelter, people around him to take charge if shit falls apart...so now all that he's been through is starting to catch up.....


	4. Look Deeper

The next several days brought heavy rains, flooding the training field and bringing the river foaming to the brink of its banks. They spent the time indoors, listening to lectures on monster anatomies, memorizing recipes for blade oils and discussing their use which really meant listening to Geralt and Regis tell stories.

As interesting as it all was, Roche didn't like being cooped up inside for so long. It made him feel as though he were forgetting something important, or running out of time in some way. He envied the students who were still young enough to enjoy a day off for what it was.

Anna told them all a bit more about her murderous cousin and how Geralt had been the only one who had listened to her concerns that it wasn't a literal monster he was hunting.

"People are always wantin' to believe its something else." She kept her eyes trained on the fire, adding another log, and seemingly speaking ot herself more than to the room. "They don't want to accept that a human could do what a monster could."

"Which brings up an important point." Geralt brought everyone's attention back to him. "Witchers are trained to hunt monsters. For some, that means only taking contracts on creatures who are definitely not human, and in a few cases, regardless of whether or not they've done anything wrong."

"I was taught to interpret our code a bit differently. A monster is something that behaves monstrously; its violent and it damages those around it. I don't give a rats ass what it actually looks like; human, elven, doppler, leshen, werewolf, vampire, archespore, whatever. If it's living in peace, I leave it that way. I expect you to be able to use your best judgement to decide for yourselves. You can always turn a person over to the local authorities if you're not comfortable passing judgement. But once you kill someone, you can't bring them back if it turns out you were wrong."

"Why would anyone kill something if they haven't got to?" Lissette looked distressed at the very idea. 

"There are a lot of old prejudices and people who just don't know any better."

"But...what if you think someone is guilty. What if you have evidence that makes it look like they are responsible. So you maybe kill them, and then you find more evidence later or that they were being framed or something. What happens?" Sam's concern was mirrored on all their faces.

"You live with the regret of knowing you could've spent more time and looked harder. Learn from your mistakes, if you survive them. Make some kind of restitution, if you can."

"A thousand small changes can happen in the blink of an eye, especially on a battlefield. There's always something going on that you can't see and maybe never find out about. You can only act in good faith on the information you have at that time and revise as best you can as you go. It's never perfect. And if you're in a life or death situation, any mistake is going to cost somebody; you or others, you don't always get to choose." Roche added.

"Have you ever left a monster that turned out to actually be a danger?" Duval cocked an eyebrow. 

"Anything can be dangerous, given the right circumstances." Geralt answered. "You have to weigh your options. Can you explain, teach people to be tolerant, work out some compromise? Or are you going to try and take resposibility for everyone? I once convinced a village that the troll living in the mountains nearby was no danger to them if they could agree to trade some meat for the trolls protection of the roadways. Thought it all worked out. I left. A few months later I got word they had got together and killed the troll themselves. You can't control every outcome."

"Then whats the point? If someone else is going to kill the thing anyway, why not do it yourself and make sure it's clean, at least?" Sebastien scowled. "And who bargains with a troll? I'd have sided with the villagers and just killed it straight away. Saves trouble for everyone."

Duval nodded.

"Trolls are living things with feelings, a kind of intelligence. I don't go killing intelligent creatures for no reason other than village ignorance."

"Intelligent?!" More scoffing and eye rolls at that. Even Roche had his doubts. "Feelings?!"

"Look, they'll never graduate Oxenfurt magna cum laude, but they have their own kind of cunning and a sort of culture. I met one that liked to paint and sing. Should've introduced him to Dandelion...Some others who liked to collect shoes. My point is that you can talk to them if you need to. Takes a bit to understand them, their dialect is pretty rudimentary, but it can be done. "

"It can pay to look a little deeper. Better to do the job as thorough the first time, then make yourself more work later on. Things aren't always what they seem. So if you go in with all kinds of preconceived notions, you'll be doin' yourself no favors." Anna commented. "If all you want is to kill things for your Crown, then you needn't come here. Killing ought to be a last resort."

"You'd think folks would be sick of it by now anyway." Roche shifted to lean closer to the fire and crossed his arms over his chest.

Nightmares came that night. Old faces, bodies piled in heaps, blood flooding the gutters, and a low roaring sound that kept him from being heard whenever he screamed orders or warnings out; he thought it was the wind. When he jolted awake, shaking with adrenaline, it turned out to be the blood rushing in his ears.

He tossed and turned, unable to get back to sleep. 

Eventually, he pulled the quilt off his bed and made a pallet on the floor. With a wall to his back and a harder surface as he'd become accustomed to sleeping on, he was able to drift into a fitful rest; only jumping when thunder rumbled. It sounded so damned much like heavy artillery and magefire.

The next few days, he'd never been so grateful for the excellent coffee available in Toussaint. If Geralt or anyone else marked the deep bags beneath his eyes, they said nothing, for which he was also grateful.


	5. Pessimistic

As soon as the weather broke, they took the opportunity to go into town to resupply and enjoy the warm day. People had been getting cabin fever.

The ride in was boisterous, students exchanging plans for where they would visit first.

Roche had the name of a bookseller and was eager to stretch his legs on some city streets. There were also some armories to check out, and a restaurant or two he wouldn't mind trying. Corvo Bianco was beautiful but he was a city boy born and bred and there was only so much pastoral views and owls hooting at night that he could stand before the soothing wore off and the boredom began.

Ves, Lissette, and Anna had gone ahead the night prior, some sort of girls night out. Roche had no idea what three women could do in a city the size of Beauclair for a whole night, but since he knew at least two of the three could defend themselves, he hadn't been too concerned about them going on their own. They'd be meeting up later. He'd probably catch an earful about whatever they'd done then. 

They passed carts full of people and goods on the way, waving every time. Many of the carts heading out had garden supplies in the back; it was the spring planting season, after all. The air was humid and hazy, the birds chirped and fields were showing more green beneath the sun after the rains. The color was so bright and pure that it almost hurt Roche's eyes. Everywhere he looked, rolling hills, charming cottages, and neat farmsteads met the eye. Storybook was right. The place looked like a painting.

But looks could be deceiving. As Anna had mentioned, things weren't always what they seemed. 

Roche wondered what lurked beneath the surface here, what wasn't as idyllic as it seemed, to make a witcher want to set up shop and start teaching. 

The possibilities sent a chill down his spine.

Looking over the cart full of students, he wondered if they would weather whatever came. Not one of them was in armor. None had thought to bring weapons beyond the small sort of daggers that everyone wore. They were laughing, talking, not paying any attention to their surroundings. This group had so much still to learn. History told him most of them wouldn't make it, but then again, Geralt had that knack for pulling the long shot.

Maybe he'd pull this off as well.


	6. Footwork

The town square that marked the beginning of the river walk was packed with throngs of shoppers. 

"Geralt? Did you by any chance forget that this weekend was the Spring Flower Festival?" Regis was beaming without showing his teeth. He'd already spotted a display detailing medicinal herbs and their uses, with shelves of specimens grown in cute tiny clay pots.

"I did. But it doesn't matter. Their assignment is people watching; how body language changes, distractions, scents, that kind of thing. This is more of a crowd than I was anticipating, but it still works for what I want them to focus on today."

"Well, if it's no trouble, then..." Regis was already engrossed in reading plant labels.

"Sure. Catch up to you later."

"Armory, then? Or bookshop? I'm not much for plants." Roche offered.

"I wouldn't mind looking for some of the rarer alchemical plants, but Regis will know what to pick up if he finds any good ones. " Geralt drew a deeper breath through his nose and hummed appreciatively as they walked past a display; rose and honeysuckle, according to its label, winding up a trellis. "Besides, I like how some of these smell."

"Witcher Geralt literally stopping to smell the roses?" Roche clucked his tongue. "Better not let too many people see you do that or they'll think you've gone soft. Retired for sure."

"Aw, come on, Roche. I encounter enough terrible odors when I'm working. Thought you'd agreed to come out here because you'd gotten tired of the smell of rotten corpses, burning or otherwise, too."

"I am. I did. That doesn't mean I'm trading my sword for a gardeners spade, however."

"Anna wouldn't give that up in any case."

"Huh?"

"The spade. She's taken over the greenhouse and came to me with some suggestions for how we might expand it. Got a green thumb, that one."

"Oh. Am I supposed to be impressed? Really, Geralt. She seems a capable enough fighter, but I don't know why you're so pressed for us to get along. That might be asking too much."

"I'm surprised at you, Roche. I thought you had a better sense of people. I never had you pegged for the superficial type."

They pushed around a corner, against the flow of traffic and then cut across to take another street to the bookshop. Roche had to watch that he didn't run into anyone and their conversation dropped off for a moment.

"How am I being superficial about Anna? I barely know her. She's not much for looks but as I said she seems capable so far. Whether or not we can work together might depend on what you need us to work on. I could give you a better answer if you gave me better information. Or have you forgotten how this works?"

"Haven't forgotten, Roche. But I don't actually have anything specific. Call it a hunch. I'd rather have the most experienced people I can get helping me with this school. And as lovely as all this is, Toussaint does have a dark side. If anything serious did happen, something the students weren't ready to handle yet..."

"You want backup you can send out that can handle it, unaided. And that's me and Anna...."

"You and I what, now?"

Roche had to do a double take at the woman who had appeared at his side. Still, even given her response, it wasn't until he saw Ves and Lissette with her that recognition clicked for certain. Anna looked....Different wasn't the right word. _Talk about someone who cleans up well._

He swallowed against a mouth suddenly gone dry at the changes. She had cleavage, full and plunging and...and was that a tattoo? A pattern, something; it might have been a birthmark but was more probably ink that vanished behind the low neckline of her blouse. The rest of her outfit meant little beyond the sexual intrigue it sparked in him; some type of flouncy skirt that swirled around her knees, showing off shapely and tanned calves encased in little slippers that laced with ribbon up...His hands itched to get at those ties and stroke upward from there. Her waist was belted by some sort of embroidered band cinched up like a corset that only served to emphasis her bust. 

There was a sprig of tiny frothy white flowers tucked into her braided hair, the offering of some vendor, no doubt. A touch of makeup. She turned to laugh at something Lissette said and when she turned back towards him her face was still lit with mirth. She was beautiful. 

Anna. Plain, disagreeable, mud hen Anna who wore mens clothes, who spit and cursed, who scuffled about and sweated in the dirt with the rest of them, who hadn't turned his head once since they'd met. Roche chided himself for not noticing at least the potential there. 

And gods, but he'd always had a thing for women's legs. One look and he could tell just how good it would feel to have them wrapped around him. If Anna's calves were any indication of the whole, she'd be the sort who locked her knees up around his back and pulled him in deeper, moving to match his every....

Ves elbowed him sharply.

"What?!" He snapped.

"What's your what? Anna asked you a question and you just stand there gaping like a damned fish. We'll be in looking at books, if you manage to find wherever your brains have gone off to. No sense waiting on that." 

"How did you put up with his terrible moods all those years?" He heard Anna ask Ves as they shouldered past him and into the shop.

"I didn't" Ves' cheeky response almost escaped him.

If it hadn't been for that flower display Geralt had pointed out, he never would've known what it was called, but Anna smelled like honeysuckle. Even that name seemed suggestive to his current frame of mind....it was bad enough those damned shoes of hers made him want to get on his knees and nibble his way up...

"Roche, do I need to throw you in the river?" Geralt was leaning against the door frame, one brow arched with that odd expression that was resigned and amused all at once.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm fine. Just....didn't recognize her without all the dirt. Is all."

"Don't lie. I'm a witcher. Your body temperature spiked, your heart rate, and so did your hormones."

"What? How could you even...?"

"Witcher senses are pretty sharp." Geralt tapped his nose.

Roche gaped as what the witcher was saying sank in. _Geralt could smell_....That had nearly the same effect as a douse of cold water. He swallowed hard and nodded his understanding. 

"Sorry."

Awkward revelation aside, they followed the women into the bookstore. Anna's scent vanished into the miasma of dusty carpet, leather and vellum, binding glue, and spilled ink. Shelves ran floor to ceiling, packed with tomes of all sorts and hosting fewer cobwebs than expected. It was as good a distraction as he could have asked for. He ended up selecting two books on history, one on Temerian architecture with some nice etchings in it, and a replacement copy of a treatise on military tactics written by one of the men who'd trained him, long dead now, for one he'd long since lost. 

Peeking at what Anna had bought, he saw some plant books, a book of poetry, and a seafaring history of Skellige Isle clans. There was also something with a bear's head embossed on the cover with crossed swords behind it. He couldn't see the title. 

Ves had picked a true crime novel, and a history book about Toussaint. Lissette's were on fashion. Roche resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

Geralt surprised him by buying a thick tome on philosophy, a compendium of modern medical and surgical practices, and another on natural history. 

"Some of those are for Regis. Since we lost him to the herbalist tables on the way in."

"He stopping to smell the roses, too?"

"Better about it than I am, most days."

"What's his actual profession? When I asked he rattled off about half a dozen things. I got the impression some were hobbies?"

"Technically, Barber-surgeon. But he's also an inventor, an alchemist, a brew master, an advisor, and he's helped me on more than one contract."

"Ah. Jack of all trades and master of none but better than a master of one, is that it?"

"Master of almost all, in his case. He's well educated and, well, older than he looks."

"Hm. I might have envied him that, once. I had to lie about my age just to get into the military, so I've been doing it ever since. Sometimes the actual years just don't work in our favor. It sounds as though he's used his time well."

"How old were you?" Anna asked while she was paying for her purchases and inquiring about the time."Skellige law is fifteen. Any younger and parents have to give permission. Most will. Raiding against Nilfgaards taken so many, they need the manpower."

"Continental law is seventeen. I was fifteen. Only just. The recruiter didn't believe me. But I also told him my parents were dead, so he thought he couldn't verify it. It's the only time my heritage ever did me any good."

"I don't understand. How would that have mattered either way?" Anna frowned. "Were your parents military, as well?"

Roche tensed. He hadn't meant to put anyone on that particular trail. His hair had grown out long enough.... Then again, since the cat was almost out of the bag, he might as well go ahead and get a sense for whether or not it would be a problem. It was always a problem for someone.

"No. My mother is...was human. My father, whoever he was, had some elven blood. At any rate, I didn't inherit anything from him save for the fact that when I was fifteen I was a scrawny undersized runt with ears just pointy enough to convince a dimwitted man that I only _looked_ younger."

"Oh. How old are you now, then?" Anna laughed. "Did you have to make yourself a whole new birth date? Or just change the year? 

"I'm forty seven." He glared at her. "Forty nine according to any Temerian military records still existing. It mattered so much back then, those two years. It seems foolish now. And past a certain age, vain." A tight spot in the pit of his stomach eased some, despite her sarcasm. Anna didn't seem to care. 

He'd worn hoods, hats, that damn chaperon, for so many years because at court, being of mixed race was a problem for too many. In order to do his job most effectively, he'd found it expedient to hide the visible evidence of his ancestry. When people didn't judge so immediately, he sometimes got a chance to prove what he could do and be measured by his actions instead. At least, that had been his hope. And then there were the pogroms...his eventual rank might have protected him, but it hadn't been a risk worth taking. He shook the dark line of thought away and refocused on what Anna was still saying.

"....was all I ever got from my da."

"Anna, it's almost time." Ves cut in, "Lissette and I can take your books back. Are you going to be on the main stage? We'll come and see you there later."

"Wait, what?" Roche had missed something. 

"I'm dancing tonight. But I said I'd help set things up, so I have to go now. Thanks! I'll see you later." 

"Dancing?" Roche turned to Geralt. "Don't we all have some kind of assignment to do today?"

"Anna'll be able to see the crowds just fine from the stage. Multiple vantage points are a good thing in this exercise."

"If you say so." 

His mood dimmed as though a cloud had drifted over him. Even the armory and a midday meal of fresh out of the oven scones redolent with herbs, cheese, and bits of bacon, alongside bowls of stew and mugs of ale, wasn't enough to cheer him up. He spent the lunch break gazing out around the common room, trying to spot anything that might be of interest for Geralt's assignment. Not because he was disappointed that Anna wasn't with them. Nothing really jumped out at him, but it did help kill the hours.

The Festival closed that night with music and dancing, walkways lit by lanterns. 

"Is she any good?" Roche leaned over to ask Regis. Anna's dancing didn't really stand out from anyone elses on the stage. At least not that he could tell. He didn't have an eye for it; he knew precisely one court dance, now approximately twenty years out of fashion, which Foltest had made him learn so as not to embarass his Highness ovemuch at any court functions he had been required to attend. They had both declared afterward that he had no future as a dancer and that it was fortunate his skills lay elsewhere.

This dance wasn't familiar either. It was some sort of peasants ceremonial spring dance; a group of women dancing one part, a group of men dancing a corresponding part, then mingling together to dance the finale. She was energetic about it. Which did nothing to abate his growing interest. He allowed himself a brief stab of envy for the man who got to catch Anna's hips and lift her around during the turns.

"I would have thought, given your ability to tighten up the students' footwork, that you'd be able to tell for yourself." 

"I know swordplay. Not dancing." He had to raise his voice to be heard. The frenetic drumbeat was wreaking havoc with his heart rate. Hopefully, Geralt couldn't hear that over the noise.

"You say that as though they are mutually exclusive. I assure you they are not." Regis arched a brow at him. "Swordplay is built of a series of specific steps, poses, and distances, all dependant on the selections of the same by another. One person acts, another reacts. Dancing is not so different. It merely offers less mortal danger, a controlled environment, and the chance to be close to another. Go on and ask Anna for the next one. She can teach you the steps. You might even find you enjoy it."

Thunderous applause punctuated with cheers and whistles broke out as the dance came to its crescendo and ended, dancers splitting up, bowing, and giving up the stage fully to the musicians, who settled into something slower and more manageable. Couples began to fill the square as the dancing was opened to everyone else.

"I'm not so sure I'm up for that. Besides, I'm sure Anna's got...." Roche frowned. Regis had already towed Geralt, who was putting up a token protest, out amongst the dancers. 

It seemed a great way to give Anna more fodder against him and in a public setting, too. _You don't know how to socialize_. Her prior words came back to him.

_Damn it all. I am...was head of Temerian Special Forces. I am not afraid to ask a woman to dance._

_Our assignment is body language after all; maybe hers will tell me something. Like whether or not I have a snowballs chance in hell..._

Bracing for an acerbic response, he walked over to where Anna was getting a drink.


	7. Until You Learn

"Stop trying to lead!"

"I'm supposed to! And don't make some crack about sexism because that's how I was told it was done."

"You don't know how. You said King Foltest taught you one? How'd you settle who leads with two men?"

"Foltest led; he was King, after all. So, um, rank, I suppose."

"Hm. And Regis and Geralt? Who 'outranks' who there?"

"Witcher and an alchemist or whatever he is? The witcher would lead." Roche scanned the crowd and spotted them; Regis leading.

"Well, maybe they're an exception." He backpedaled as Anna laughed softly. "Or Geralt doesn't know how to dance either. He doesn't, does he?"

"I think he can, he just doesn't chose to unless its someone elses idea. You'd lead if you knew what you were doin'. But you don't. So, I lead until you learn it."

"And then what?" He stared down at her face; noticing the freckles across her nose and cheeks and the way she was avoiding his eye contact, feeling his face warm at the suggestive tone of his own words. Flirting was turning out to be much preferable to fighting with her. 

"Then, we'll see."

"Fine. Just try not to step on my toes." He shifted to hold her a little closer. Her body heat mingled with his in very pleasant way.

"Put your toes where I tell you and they'll stay safe as harbors." She corrected him, putting him back a pace. 

"What?"

"Just an expression." Anna sighed and rolled her eyes.

_Maybe a slightly better chance than the snowball._

"Have you figured out what you need for this assignment?" Anna directed him into a simple four step. 

She probably thought he couldn't talk and learn to dance at the same time.

"I'm picking up on a few things." He tried flirting some more.

"Well, you did figure out with almost no prompting that Geralt doesn't dance. I guess that counts for something."

"Is that all?"

She glanced up at him with a look that said she suspected what he was doing.

"Maybe. Maybe not." She glanced over his shoulder, then turned him about so he could see the rest of the square. "There. Lady in the green dress? About four o'clock. Talking to a man in a dark jacket?"

"I see them." Roche kept his gaze drifting, taking them in a little at a time. Staring was a dead give away and something in Anna's voice had warned him they were spying a bit right now. "What of it?"

"Somethings off about her. Body language is stiff. Does her dress look, I don't know, like it was made for someone else? And there. She just handed something off to him."

"Hm. Lissette might be the one to ask about the dress. But I don't see what you mean about 'off'. She looks fine to me. Wouldn't have figured you to be the jealous type."

Anna sneered at him for that joke. 

"It's not as noticeable when she's standing still. It's when she moves; somethings off. Like a puppet pretending to be a person."

"Like a...That's a hell of a thing to say about anyone. You think she's not human? Be careful where you throw that accusation." Roche tightened his grip, leaned closer, hissing the last as a threat in Anna's ear.

The look she gave him was unfathomable.

"I'm not accusing anyone of anything. And I don't care what or who she is if she hasn't done anything. We were supposed to watch people's body language. Hers caught my attention, is all, and I'm tryin' to figure out why. Now, let go." 

With a deft twist, she freed herself from his arms and turned to storm off through the crowd.

"Anna, wait." Roche hurried to follow.

By the time he caught up to her, having grabbed a bottle of something mostly full from a vacant table on his way past, they were both out of breath.

Anna huffed out a frustrated sigh at having been unable to lose him and slowed to a normal pace. They followed along the river walk, away from the dancers and the lantern light. The gardens that led down to the river bank were deserted save for a few couples out courting in the moonlight. The surrounding greenery was peaceful save for snippets of soft conversation or the occasional sigh or giggle from those who had secreted themselves away amongst the flowers.

"I fucking _hate_ springtime." Roche grumbled as the shrub he was walking past sighed dreamily. 

"Of all the foolish things to hate. A whole poor season that can't but help itself. What has it ever done to you?" He couldn't see Anna's face as she was still ahead of him, but her voice was all sarcasm.

"This. Flowers, dancing, romance. It's a load of steaming hog crap, all of it."

"Someone mistook _you_ for a _romantic_? Shame on them."

"I...Ouch." He pressed a hand to his heart, feigning a mortal wound. "Never mind. I'm not looking to start another fight. I was going to say that I might have jumped to the conclusion that you were singling that woman out because you thought she wasn't human. It's a sore subject for me; maybe I overreacted. And, um, thanks. For teaching me that dance."

Anna stared at him for a long moment before sighing and dropping some of the defensive tension from her posture.

"Even if it was a load of steaming hog crap?" Her brow arched. 

"Yeah. Even though."

She turned and kept walking, picking her way off the main path and down a small deer trail to the waters edge. The moon was bright and full, sparkling off the current in myriad scintillating little points. The lap of water against the rocks was soothing. 

Anna stooped to peer at the shore until she spotted a smooth round stone. She palmed it, angling her finger alongside. A quick snap of her wrist and it sailed across to slap land, once, twice, three, four times before it sank, sending ripples out to be wiped away by the current. A corresponding splash from the opposite bank came to their ears as a fish or a turtle or something was disturbed.

Watching her, Roche almost forgot about the bottle in his hand. It had been a cursed aching age since he'd been alone with a woman. He broke that line of thought. It did no good to dwell.

"Peace offering?" He offered it to her. The gesture felt lame, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Depends on what it is." She popped the cork out and sniffed cautiously. "Hm."

Then she tipped the bottle up, licking her lips when she finished. She offered it back. "Apple brandy. A good one, too."

He took a swallow, aware that the moisture around the neck was partly from her lips. Warm spice, oaky vanilla, and an almost puckery, sour rush of apple before a fireball went off in his stomach, rushing up his throat and he coughed out, laughing. 

"Shit. That's got more kick to it than I was expecting."

"Never had apple brandy before? It'll hit you."

"No. Strong stuff?"

"Can be." She nodded, mood gone pensive again. She sat down on a rock. He handed the bottle back and sat as well.

"Oren for you thoughts?"

"Just...revising my observations about you. I can't figure out what it means, though."

"What does what mean?"

"V, you run hot and then cold. You're offensive, then apologetic, then you flirt, then you're angry, then generous. I don't know what all that means so I'm just asking you. What do you want from me?"

"What do I...? Damned if I know, truth be told." He smirked at the nickname. He'd never had one before, at least not to his face. He knew what they'd called him behind his back. _Foltest's loyal hound_. Even if it was just his first initial, it was still something that she did that. 

"Maybe that's the problem." She supplied, unhelpfully. She stood, dusting the rock grit from her skirts.

"I'm open to suggestions. What I won't take is pity." He rose as well, lamenting that whatever this interlude had been, it was ending. Anna was ready to head back.

"Pity? I suppose you do look a bit like a lousy vagabond climbed down out of the woods, so I can see where folk might pity you. I don't."

"...Lousy.!...You just listen here..." His indignation broke off at her laughter."You did that on purpose."

"It's too easy to rile you up, V. How'd you ever manage to survive the military with that temper of yours?"

_Again, damned if I know._

"Are you?" 

"Am I what?" 

He leaned forward, cupping her cheek. "Easy... to rile up?"

No mistaking his intent there. Her eyes went wide just before he kissed her.


	8. First Case

Anna's lips were soft, warm, and yielded to him for a sweet breathless moment before her hands came up and she shoved him back. 

"The hell are you playin' at?!"

"Anna..."

"No. I didn't kill you but I'm surely not here to bed you, either. We're supposed to work together. How is that supposed to go if I gotta worry about where your brain and your hands are at?" She whirled and rushed of into the darkness, leaving a profound silence behind.

"Anna!" He called after her. "Shit."

Left alone on the riverbank with his confusion, Roche sat back down on the boulder. "How'm I ever supposed to explain this to Geralt..." 

Aware that he was talking to himself, he shut his mouth. Standing back up, he paced a bit, hoping the activity might help settle his thoughts. It didn't. He picked up some rocks and burned off some frustration throwing them out over the river with increasingly satisfying splooshing sounds. 

_Why the hell had he gone and kissed her anyway?_ He could still feel her against his lips.

Done with the rocks, he took a long swig of apple brandy. The stuff was kind of growing on him, sour or not. 

His first impression of her had been more accurate. _Pain in my arse._

Whores were much easier to understand. It was a matter of price. Maybe, if they liked a man, they'd make him an offer. If he liked, he accepted. Once they were paid, everyone went their own way. Simple. Everyone got something they wanted and went away satisfied by the exchange. 

Women who didn't whore didn't understand the benefits to such an arrangement. They wanted conversation, compliments, pleasantries, coin, time, hard work, romance, loyalty and even then sometimes they'd turn away. What was the exchange there? Getting to play house? Getting married? Having children?

Roche wasn't sure he understood what the payoff to those things was. Most men his age were married. They had children. To hear them gripe about the nagging and the whining, the household bills, the repairs, the fights, and the demands of being a husband and a father, he had often wondered why they hadn't just steered clear of the whole mess.

_What do you want with me?_

Then again, there were at least as many nights that he lay awake and worried that he'd missed out on something fundamental about life. Those few of his remaining men that had gone home had done so because they'd had homes to return to. Someone who'd missed them and worried for their safety. Who would be overjoyed by their return. Someone to warm them at night. They didn't have to pay to mimic that privilege, however briefly. And some of his men, he knew because they had never shut up about it, adored their children and couldn't wait to get back to them. That, he had sometimes envied. 

One of his scouts had a five year old son. When the wife's care package had arrived, the little boy had made sure to send his pair of mittens because the scout had written home about how cold it was in the mountains. That man had gone the rest of the war with those little mittens tucked into his gambeson for luck. Another soldier had a daughter who'd sent her teddy bear to help protect her father. It was those heartbreaking moments that had reminded them all that there were people still living more or less normal lives out there somewhere; reminded them what they were fighting and dying to protect. 

He was lost in thought and getting a little buzzed on the brandy when a piercing shriek ripped apart the peace and quiet of the evening.

The bottle dropped from his hand to crash apart on the rocks.

"Anna!"

Without waiting for an answer, he tore back up the path, heading more or less in the direct he thought the cry had come from. Branches lashed at him. Another wail sounded. He stumbled over the uneven ground, one hand groping to free up his dagger.

He collided with Anna in a small clearing just above the shoreline.

"Did you just scream?" He needed to be sure, even though he could see now that she seemed fine and had been running in the same direction he was but coming from back towards the city.

"Do I bloody look like a screamer to you?" Her voice was low whisper. 

Roche opened his mouth but snapped it shut again, realizing there was no way he could dignify that with a response. Together they headed towards the water.

Muffled hiccuping sounded. Splashing. Another wail that broke off into a sob.

"Help...please. Somebody...?" A young woman was staggering around on the bank, in obvious distress. 

"What's happened? Are you hurt?" Anna moved forward slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal.

"No. Not me. Him. There. He's...somethings....he's dead." She pointed with a shaking hand back towards something bulky on the riverbank.

"What is that?" Roche strained to make it out in the moonlight.

Anna moved to have a closer look.

"There's a body. Roche, will you please go get Geralt?"

"And leave you both here unarmed? No. Fucking. Way."

"I'm not unarmed." She hiked up her skirts and pulled her own dagger from where it had been strapped around her thigh with some sort of lace contraption. "Go."

He bristled at the order, trying not to think too much about the toned glimpse he'd just been afforded, but jerked a nod and ran back off to the city square in search of the witcher.

Anna looked over the young lady. Her skirts were wet, as if she'd waded out into the river. 

"Do you know him?" She asked softly. "Tell me what happened?"

"It's Theodore. He said he had something important to tell me. We arranged to meet here tonight. I waited and waited...if it wasn't for his jacket hanging on that branch, I would have thought he'd never been."

"Was Theodore your sweetheart?"

The girl nodded. "We were talking about running away to get married. We don't have a lot of money. We didn't...." Her weeping started up again. 

"What's your name?" Anna kept her voice calm. "I'm Anna. We came here with Geralt, the witcher. At the very least, he may be able to tell what happened to Theodore tonight."

"I'm Ellena."

"Ellena, did Theodore know how to swim?"

"Yes. Most of the boys in town do. Some of the girls, too. That river, everyone bathes in it or fishes, or swims. We built a raft last year...before a storm swept it off."

Soon enough the sound of voices, footsteps and torchlight approached. 

"Is it true someone's dead?" Sebastien's imperious voice rose above the murmurs and exclamations of the curious who were gathering.

"Are we going to help?" Corbin's anxious tones. "Do you need us?"

"Anna?" Geralt's voice. Apparently he had arrived with the whole class in tow. "What have you got?"

"Dead body and a traumatized girl." 

Regis scrambled down the bank and took over checking Ellena for injuries. 

"See anything?" Roche asked as he followed behind Regis.

"No. Nothing's shown itself." She got them caught up on what she'd learned. 

Within minutes, Geralt was able to convince the watchmen on duty that he and his students would handle the whole thing and that this would free up the watch men to keep an eye out for anything else. The watchmen cleared away the small crowd of onlookers and assigned some men to see to it that Ellena got home safely. In a span of half an hour, they were the only ones left.

"Alright, class." Geralt rose from where he'd been examining the body. " Looks like we have our first case. Without trampling the area, who can tell me something useful about what might have happened to Theodore and Ellena tonight."

Cautiously, the students began branching out. Duval, who's uncle was a huntsman for the Duchess, began scanning the ground for tracks. He had tendency to mutter while he worked. 

"Deer. That's from last night or early this morning. Boots. Could be the dead man's. These prints are Ellena's. I don't recognize what made those."

"Quietly. If you please." Roche scowled at him as he explained. "We still don't know what did this. Never get so distracted by what your doing that you lose track of your own surroundings."

Duval nodded and went back to tracking, his lips moving.

Lissette surprised everyone by going straight over to the body. 

"May I?" 

Geralt moved aside to give her space. 

Lissette glanced back at the others. "Sam? Can I have a bit more light here?" 

Sam hurried over with the torch. 

"Well?" Geralt prompted. 

"..." She answered. "His throat's been torn out."

"It also appears that parts of him have been....eaten." 

"Eaten?" Roche felt his stomach turn a bit. Memories of battle fields and unfinished mass graves crawling with maggots and necrophages rose. "How long would he have to be in the water for that to happen? According to that girl, he was missing for two hours at the most."

"Depends on what did the eating." Geralt answered. "Drowners are so called because they prefer to drown their victims before they consume them. Water hags like carrion. Both might try to weigh a body down after a kill to let get nice and decomposed before they dine. Anyone else?"

"Could it have been a mucknixer?" Anna asked. "I don't know if you have them here."

"Could have been." Geralt nodded. "How could we verify it?"

"Drowners...." Pol began but broke off at the sound of more splashing and pointed instead."Drowners!"

"Oh. Well, that is one way."

Weapons were drawn and the whole group set to fight as dark slimy figures rose from the river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have twelve more chapters written-ish but of course, they are all out of order, because why would my brain do anything organized? And I still haven't nailed down all my major plot points. So, I know nothing interesting has happened in the 8chs so far...please be patient. This is shaping up to be a longer story than I had initially planned on. And as always- thanks for reading!


	9. Clear Cut

Even taken by surprise, the students made short work of the monsters. 

After the drowners had been disposed of, the mortician and his assistant came and took the body to the morgue where kin could make burial arrangements. 

It was a clear cut case and a handy one For Geralt to start his students on. Something to build their confidence and acclimate them.

"Still any idea how he ended up in the water, the poor sod? I saw no blood on the shore but what looked to have dripped from him after." Anna frowned as the coroner draped a sheet over Theodore and the assistant scribbled out a name tag to tie to his toe. Somewhere out in the antechamber, Theodore's mother was sobbing softly.

"Ellena did say he knew how to swim." Regis commented. 

"Hm. Maybe he was swimming. His coat was hanging up..." Sebastien offered.

"Then why go in with the rest of his clothes?" Sam gestured to the pile of damp effects the coroner had removed, laying out on the counter.

"Right. He wouldn't have." 

Lissette wandered over and peered at his clothing.

"There's something here?" She reached for one pocket. "It looks like a letter?"

Lissette looked it over, Duval trying to read over her shoulder. 

"He was looking for a ring..." Lissette murmured absently, still reading. "In the river, I mean."

"What are you on about?" Roche frowned. "Let me see that?"

"He was going to propose to Ellena. But either he was fidgeting, or something and he dropped the ring into the water and went in after it. Then the drowners got him."

"That explains it!" Duval smacked his forehead. 

"Explains what?" Geralt asked it with the patient leading tone of someone who already knew the answer and was trying to put others onto it. 

"His tracks were all over. If he'd been pacing..."

"Good work. We have a solid theory. We'll know more once these fine gentlemen have finished. Nothing else we can do tonight."

They exited the morgue, much to the coroner's less than subtle relief. It was passed midnight.

The ride back to Corvo Bianco was far more subdued than the outbound trip. As soon as the carriage rolled to a stop in the courtyard, Anna hopped out, stretched, said her goodnights, and headed to her cabin. 

Roche broke away from the others to follow. 

"Anna, wait."

"It's late, I'm tired, and I want to wash up and go to sleep. What do you want?"

"Can we talk about tonight?" _Gods, but he sounded as awkward as he felt._

"Ah. Fine." She held the door open for him.

It took her a moment of shuffling about in the dark to find the lantern and get it lit, to get a bottle of something from a cabinet, to find glasses, pour, and settle, a little uncomfortably, leaning back against the counter. She gestured for him to take the stool by the butchers block. 

He took a moment to look around while he thought about what he wanted to say. 

The layout of this cabin was identical to his, albeit facing a different direction. But even in the dim glow of the lantern's flickering, he could see that was the only similarity. Anna's had furniture; a trunk doubling as a table, a few chairs, one overstuffed with a quilt thrown over the back that looked like a seriously comfortable place to take a nap. And a bookcase, already mostly full. He spotted the stack of books she'd bought today sitting on the counter near where she was leaning. Ves must have left them when she'd come back earlier. 

Her kitchen looked clean, but in that orderly way that somehow still advertised regular use. A small jar in front of him held a rather sparse bouquet of flowers that looked as though they had been picked from the roadside. 

The place had its own scent; candle wax, wood, furniture polish, coffee, and a faint hint of honeysuckle. 

It felt like a home.

He took a swallow of the drink she'd offered him; an odd tasting whiskey. He read the bottle; something from Skellige. Not as cheap as the Temerian Rye he drank. He could feel that in the smoothness of it on his tongue. _Was she trying to show him up again?_ The whole night had left him irritable and there hadn't been nearly enough drowners to present a challenge worth taking the edge off.

"I feel as though I'm always apologizing to you. I don't want to do that any more. " 

"Well, far be it from me to tell someone to feel sorry if they're not. Most folk'll apologize the once, then change their behavior so as not to have to keep up on it. But I suppose Vernon Roche isn't most folk."

"No. I'm not. You don't have to like it. You don't even have to like me. So, do we settle this? Or do we tell Geralt that we can't work it out and he's on his own?"

"Can we? I don't like you and I don't trust you."

"What?! Because of a little kiss? You would think no one had ever put their hands on you before tonight, the way you're acting." He could've bit his own tongue when he heard how that had sounded. _What if she's like Ves...And I just said I wasn't going to apologize anymore._

"...Forget I said that. I shouldn't have."

"Why did you kiss me, then?"

"...I don't know. I wanted to. I thought you wanted me to." 

"What made you think that?" The face she pulled was one of confusion.

Hang him, but this was getting worse fast. He hadn't felt this on the spot over something since he'd been little and caught out in a lie.

"I didn't expect you'd look so... And I was watching your body language. We flirted, then we were alone. Damn it, Anna, we're both adults. Surely you know what a man thinks of when a woman's displaying her....assets...and wants to dance with him..."

"I was wearing the exact same outfit as every other woman who was dancing on that stage tonight, in case you didn't notice. It was for that dance. Not for you. And you asked me to teach you to dance. Not the same thing. I don't think that's what any of this is about."

"Oh, you don't? I can't wait to hear _your_ theory."

"I think it's what you said before." She ignored his sarcasm. "When I asked you what you wanted from me and you said you didn't know. Did you lie?"

"No. I didn't lie. I wasn't..."

"Weren't what?"

"I don't know!" He slammed his glass down hard enough to worry that he had cracked it. He hadn't. 

But his temper was up again and he had no idea why. Yes, it was awkward and personal and embarrassing to be having this conversation, but he'd been in far worse places forced to talk to far worse people. His control was better than this. _Should be_ better than this. He took a deep breath in through his nose and settled back in his seat.

"That temper of yours alone is good cause to steer clear." Anna spoke softly.

Was he imagining it or was her tone regretful? _No. Can't be. I've imagined quite enough where she's concerned and look where that's got me._

"'That temper' got me rank and respect for decades. It made me good at my job. It kept me alive."

"Aye, anger can do that, for sure. But it'll make you certain to never have any other to rely on, you use it too often. Maybe ask Ves or Geralt what they think? They've known you longer and you might regard their thoughts more'n mine. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to kick you out now on account of I'm tired and want to go to bed. And no, not with you."

"I hear you, loud and clear." He shifted off the stool and moved toward the door at her holding it open. "What do I tell Geralt?"

"Tell him whatever you'd like. I'll stay and help how I can. If that's working with you, so be it. I've looked after myself this far, I can keep on."

"Goodnight." 

"Night." The door banged shut behind him. 

_I guess the snowball won out._

He walked back to his own cabin, wondering at the strange ache growing in his chest.


	10. Field Trip

"You owe me a drink." Geralt was leaning back against the tree, arms crossed over his chest, watching the class toss mock potions and dummy grenades at a variety of targets that were set up obstacle course style. 

The whole series involved a lot of sudden turns and rolls. The grenades had been filled with a variety of paints to mimic the radius each type of bomb might produce; Regis' idea. Several students were spattered in different colors by this point in the day. Each type of 'monster' target had its target rings adjusted to reflect assorted weak points. At least where those rings could still be seen peeking from under a garish wash of paints.

"For what?" Roche looked up from his sword, pausing in the sharpening. 

"Lissette. She hasn't washed out like you said she would."

Geralt could see that his students were improving. Footwork had gotten better. Timing issues were smoothing out. They could recognize and recite uses for a dozen or so alchemical ingredients and plants. They were keeping their gear in good repair and complained less during training.

"So? Neither has Duval. She'll stay as long as he does. And I don't recall betting you on it."

"So?" Geralt mimicked him. "You were wrong. Ought to make some restitution on that count."

"Very funny. Besides, she's not even here. Haven't seen her on the field for a couple of days now."

"Bit of a witcher tradition. Female students get a week off each month, if they don't feel well enough to train. Doesn't mean she's not learning, though. Been shadowing Regis today. Turns out that she's interested in the medical side of things. They're dissecting one of those drowners."

"Huh. Well, I'm glad she found an interest to follow, then. Other than Duval, I mean, though he might disagree. You're running a school, not a matchmaking service." 

"I thought it might be a good time for a field trip. " Geralt ignored his sarcasm.

"Where to?"

"Regis told me a grave hag's moved into Mère-Lachaiselongue; an old cemetery, not far from here. Figured we could take them out there and see what they make of it. Observe it in its natural habitat, figure out how to fight it on their own, that sort of thing."

"Sounds fine. Why tell me?"

"Well, I can't observe them if it turns out that I also need to rescue them, too. And if that hag has a mate or there's anything else in the area...."

"Right. You want me to stake the place out and keep the playing field clear for them."

"No. I want you, Ves, and Anna to be out along the periphery in case they need back up." 

"Oh. Right." There must have been something in his expression because Geralt peered at him.

"Is there a problem?"

"No problem." He'd been avoiding Anna in the days since his rejection.

"Roche..."

"Fine. If you must know, I never actually made up with her."

"I thought you'd settled that."

"No settling it, I'm afraid. We don't get along and don't like each other. We don't have anything in common, and we don't agree on anything. Except that we've both decided to stay and help you, so we'll work together if we have to."

"That'll have to be good enough. So long as you have each others backs when it counts, I can't ask you for anything more."

The students, once free of paint, were enthused with the idea of fighting something for themselves. They'd gained confidence since the drowners had been confirmed as cause of death for their first case.  
Geralt had been offered a modest reward for having cleared out the riverbank; he'd let the students split it between themselves as their first official 'reward'. 

Corbin asked loads of questions in an attempt to discover what they would be fighting. Sebastien went on at length and to anyone who would listen about how overdue this was and how he had whatever they found as good as dead already. Lissette, who was still combing paint out of her hair, sighed and rolled her eyes at them. 

Geralt had only told them that they would be investigating an old graveyard and that something was there; no telling them what. He gave them the homework of deciding what sorts of creatures were likely to be encountered and what they might want to bring as far as equipment was concerned.

Later that night, they all gathered to travel the distance to the cemetery. 'Not that far' in witcher terms turned out to be three hours one way; two and a half by cart down to Francollarts, where they left horses, unpacked any supplies from the cart they wanted to have on immediate hand, and proceeded the last bit on foot. Roche would never complain; he'd marched further in heavy armor with a full pack, but it still put some perspective on just how much a witcher had to travel for their work and why it was likely easier as individuals.

Once they arrived, it was just after midnight. The moon had turned the mists rising from the moist earth and the river into a glowing ethereal haze. Owls hooted to each other. Ink dark shadows slanted deeply between the trees. Something in the water splashed. A snarl echoed from across the river; a wild cat hunting. Everything else was silent as the...well, it was a cemetery, after all.

Roche and Anna split off from the main group and set up near the road at a spot that Geralt had indicated on the map. It was at the top of a hill so they had as decent a view as was possible in the old overgrown place. 

The students were to search for tracks, signs of what might live there, and then formulate a plan of what to do. Geralt was of course, observing, and was to assist only if necessary. 

Everyone got to work. Which for Vernon and Anna meant sitting and waiting. Anna, after an initial survey of their spot, dropped her pack and lay down on the grass, using it as a back rest. An hour went by. Then two. Roche paced across the whole area.

"I hate waiting." He grumbled after the untold span of uncomfortable silence had stretched his nerves to their last.

"Do you think they'll get it?" Anna had picked a stalk of grass and was chewing on it. 

"Eventually. That's the problem. I have no idea how much longer we might be out here."

"Cemetery's not that big. They'll get it before sunrise. Unless it moved on. Besides, it's not as though you're missing sleep."

He shot her a withering look but said nothing; he knew the shadows under his eyes gave it away.

"There are other things I could be doing." 

"Such as?" Anna scoffed. 

"I could be reading, for one. Or mending my gambeson. Or finding more agreeable company than you. Or...." He broke off at her snickering. _Shit, she was baiting him again._

"Oh, aye. You could be. But you're not."

"No." He resumed pacing. 

"You'll wear a new road, you keep that up."

"I can't sit still. Not for this long."

"Why don't you like them?"

"Who?" Her question took him by surprise.

"The students." She tilted her chin to gaze up at him. "They're not so bad; a few unformed edges, but overall a good group. But you barely talk to them unless its to yell."

Memories of his men, the last official Blue Stripes, swam before him on a blood red tide. He felt short of breath.

"Doesn't pay to get close." He answered, voice gruff with choked off emotion. "They're Geralt's students. Not mine."

"If they were? You'd talk to them then?"

"No. Like I said. Doesn't pay." 

"That's not how you are with Ves, though. Why?"

He thought about the skinny underfed young woman they'd freed all those years ago. She'd been like a stray cat, hissing and spitting and not letting anyone close. That fire and defiance in her eyes, her iron will to survive, to learn to fight, had strengthened Roche's opinion of her. An opinion that had only grown over the years he'd invested in teaching her, trusting her, relying on her, and seeing her succeed. 

"After all we've been through, she might as well be my sister or my niece or something. Ves is family, even if we don't share blood." The only family he had left.

"Have you any other family?"

"Why are you so chatty all of sudden?"

"Why don't you want to answer the question?"

"I didn't not want to answer. I just don't see that it's any of your business, is all. Why do you care?"

"Just passing the time. But that still didn't answer so now I have to wonder whats wrong with them."

"Nothing. There's no _them_...." His ire grew. _Why couldn't she shut up and leave well enough alone?!_

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I just thought it was something most people could talk about. Seems I thought wrong, is all." Anna wasn't any more for apologies than he was. 

"If you must know; my mother was a whore. Her husband had died and left her in debt. Roche was his name. I don't know if she's still alive and I don't care. I've no idea who my father was. When I was about twelve, my mother tried to sell me. So I ran away. I lived on the streets for a few years, and I got the shit beat out of me on a regular basis. I starved and I froze. So, out of desperation, I tried to con my way into the military and succeeded. That's my happy gods-damned family."

He braced himself for her derision. _Whoreson_. How many fucking witless jokes and insults had he heard in his life? Been the brunt of? His fists clenched. Hers wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket.

"Tried to sell you? To a press gang or something?"

"No. To her pimp."

"Hm." Anna's tone was sober, though he could not see her face. "I can see why you hold family in low regard, then. Your unit was closer to you?"

No mocking tone. No reaction that he was accustomed to receiving....Like his ears.

"Anna....I just told you I'm the bastard son of a whore and some total unknown. That's all you have to say?"

She sat up then and swiveled to face him.

"Aye. That's all."

"Do you not understand?"

"Understand that you've no cause to be close with your kin? I do."

"No! That I'm..." He couldn't say it. His throat closed against the words. Every slur that had ever been directed at him, words often punctuated by the thud of boots against his ribs."What I am is despised, Anna. Foltest knew but I could still have been discharged from the Temerian military at any time if he decided on it. Beyond that? Jailed. Hanged. Burned. Do you not understand?"

"Why would anyone bother to hate you for your ears or your parents when your personality is such an outstanding reason? And don't condescend to me. I'm aware. Couldn't travel through Visima on my way south due to the all the pyres still smouldering, poor souls. And you mainlanders accuse our clans of behaving bloodthirsty. Though, I'll admit I don't know of any elves living in the Isles, so maybe it's just as bad there."

"You don't think nonhumans are scum who deserve it?" He baited her in return.

"I judge a person on how they act, how they treat others, that sort of thing. I don't agree with that vile church or the persecutions or the slums. I've worked with elves, a dwarf, some halflings. Though I have heard that pirates are more democratic than most."

"Pirates?" Roche frowned. _What did pirates have to do with anything?_

"Aye. I raided with a crew for years before I landed. Spent about a year and a half at home catching up with my family and then came here. Pirates take all sorts, you see, so long as they know how to sail or are willing to learn and will take orders."

Roche choked on the idea of Anna as a pirate....except....the way she fought...and her cast off mens clothing...and some of the more colorful curses she'd picked up, phrases he knew he'd heard from dockworkers and sailors...

It fit. Strangely.

"A pirate?" And here I thought you'd just stolen one's clothes." He couldn't let her know he was actually interested in hearing about it.

"Oh. I did that, too. Was how I met my second husband." She grinned, teeth flashing in the shadowing moonlight. 

_Second husband?_ His stomach clenched. Where was he now? What had happened to her first one? He reigned his imagination in before it put him in an even worse mood.

Somewhere off in the cemetery, something shrieked; a long gurgling hair raising screech. It was followed by a sudden burst of shouts and the clash of weapons, a bomb going off with a distant flash of light, and more shouting. The hag had been discovered. 

Anna clambered to her feet and drew her sword. 

"Well, there you are, then. No more waiting. Though I did think they were supposed to fight it, not try to herd the blighted thing."

Sure enough, a closer shriek and the thrashing of underbrush revealed that the hag was headed straight for them. 

Roche shifted his shoulders and drew the greatsword from his back, grinning in spite of himself. 

"Good. I was getting bored talking."


	11. Catch a Hag by the Tongue

"Dodge left!"

"Watch that she doesn't get through!"

"The bombs aren't working!"

"No! Your other left!"

"Aha!" Sebastien swung his blade, reckless, and slashed the hag's arm. Nearly hitting Corbin in the process, who dodged just in time. 

"Hey! Watch it!" 

"You watch it!"

The shrieking was getting deafening. 

"Shit! This thing stinks!"

The hag moved towards him and Roche got a look at it. No matter how many necrophages he ran across; he always wished he hadn't. Grave hags were just one of many corpse eaters that one needed to be leery of on corpse littered battlefields. It wasn't the first one he'd seen, but it was the first one he'd fought and therefore gotten this close to. 

In a word, it was hideous; mouth full of crooked, broken, jutting fangs. Lank unwashed hair hanging down over warty stooped shoulders. Long weirdly jointed limbs that ended in thick calloused fingers tipped with claws crusted in dried filth. The hunched posture somehow did very little to detract from her height. Flaccid tits slapped against a distended and horridly soft belly. The sag of which did not sufficiently cover her scraggly pubic hair and wrinkled crotch. The creature emitted a stench that could knock a man over; a mildewed out house reek layered over meat spoiling in the sun. Despite the cool night, Roche swore he could hear flies buzzing. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the pale shadow that was Geralt circling around the peripherals, watching how everyone was doing, silver blade drawn and ready.

He and Anna were hard pressed to keep the hag penned in for the students to finish off. Non lethal strikes, trying to drive her back downhill. It only made her fight harder to get past them.

The hag lunged at Lissette only to have Sam jump in and take the overhand blow that knocked him to the dirt. Duval used the opening to slam his pommel into the hags temple, dropping back a step afterward to level a kick to her hip joint that sent her stumbling backwards. Lissette stabbed at the hag's face, opening her cheek to jaw. 

Finding too much opposition, the hag spun around, seeking a weak point.

"Sam? You still with us?" Roche called over.

"....Yes." The answer was shaky and muffled; Sam had a hand up to the side of his face.

_Shit. One injured already. Well, fight's not over yet; could still get worse._

Roche kept his point trained on the foul thing. He needn't have bothered; it seemed that the hag could tell who had confidence tonight and who didn't. She went for Corbin with a speed that left the young man backpedaling as he parried, frantic. With a downhill slope directly behind him. Sure enough, Corbin slipped and ended up down on one knee, vulnerable as he struggled to regain his footing.

"Hey, you ugly cunt! Pick on me! I dare you!" Roche advanced, brandished his sword and shifted his weight, keeping the blade low for a lethal skewering thrust as soon as she was in range.

The hag turned towards him and opened her mouth. She did not approach. Her tongue flicked out in a lazy, almost thoughtless gesture. 

Her tongue, putrid with the decomposing juices of the corpses she'd been feasting on and far, far longer than any beings appendage had any right to be.

Roche flinched back and yelled in horror as the loathsome muscle smacked, wet and soft, and reeking, straight across his face. _Severe the tongue_. The remembered lesson crystallized. He stabbed out, heard another garbled shriek, felt resistance against the blade in his hands, before the contact broke. He couldn't tell if he'd gotten it or not. His eyes burned and his vision was gummy. Then the itching started.

"I can't see!" In the next second, it had all gone too dark. He scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve.

Something grabbed his arm and spun him back, away from the hag. Unless she'd moved? _Blighted fast bitch, if that were true_. He flailed his sword in the general direction of this new contact.

"Put your damned blade down before you stick me, you great bloody eejit!" Anna's stressed tones, close by. He lowered his blade, tauter than an overdrawn bowstring in anticipation of another blow.

"I can't see." He tried not to panic. 

"I heard you." She grabbed him and pulled him back another few paces.

He heard the clank of armor hitting the ground, grunts and cries and heavy breathing. A scuffle. Someone swearing. Corbin yelling, Anna shouting at someone to stay where they were, and Lissette's scream. 

"Get it the fuck off me!" Sebastien, sounding as afraid as Roche had ever heard from him. 

Pol and Ves yelling in unison for somebody to finish it. Pol screaming that he didn't have a shot. Then two resounding thwips in quick succession.

Then silence before someone, Pol, he thought, asked "Is that it? Is it dead?"

"Yeah." Geralt's gravel tones. "She's dead. Get everyone up on their feet; let's see to any injuries."

Feet running on packed earth, the underbrush rustling, then someone retching just off to his left. The sour reek of vomit.

"Better to let it out, if you have to." He advised the unseen puker. Most new recruits lost it after their first battle. Puke or shit or piss. It was just a way of the body for letting out sudden intense stress. He'd learned to worry more about those that didn't react that way. 

"Anything yet?" Anna asked and nudged his arm a bit. He jumped at her touch. Fuck, but he hated not being able to see.

"No."

"Geralt?" She called to the witcher. 

"Yeah, I know." The witcher sounded as if he were lower, crouching maybe? "Roche, don't worry, it wears off."

His knees nearly buckled. "Wears off?You sure?"

"Very. Been blinded a couple of times like that, myself. Don't know how long it will take for you, but by this time tomorrow you should be fine. Anna can rinse your eyes and guide you back to the cart. We have to get Sam and Sebastien patched up, then we'll be along. "

"What about Ves?" Roche could keep himself together on a walk back with Ves, he knew. He wasn't too sure how he'd fare going with Anna.

"What about her?" Ves's voice snarked at him from out of the darkness. "Off with you two. I've got to cut these bolts out, they're stuck fast. Fucking hell, I hope the smell didn't soak into the wood."

"Probably did." Geralt again. "You might want to consider those lost. But if you're going to go digging around in there, try and get me part of her liver. I've been running low."

A grunt of acknowledgment from Ves, followed by some wet squelching noise as she began cutting. "Pol, I hope you saved me a spot in those bushes because this is vile."

A weak laughed, the sound thin and close to hysterical, followed by more retching.

Then he was being directed to sit to have his eyes rinsed with the colloidal silver Regis had sent along as a disinfectant. One thing none of them had was Geralt's immunity to disease and infection. Flinching and cursing, he turned his face away only to have Anna grab his chin to get the last drops in. 

"Don't rub. I swear, you're worse than my nephews."

"It fucking stings, is what. You could have warned me."

"Alright. Lets get your stubborn arse back to town." Anna was right next to him. "I'm putting my hand on your arm, alright? Now give me your sword. No, no you can't see to put it away proper. Like dancing; let me lead right now, yeah?"

She got the blade settled in the back scabbard he wore, took his upper arm, and turned him back in the direction of the road. He hoped she couldn't feel him shaking.

"Slight uphill. Just walk, roads clear enough. That's it, you're doin' fine."

She kept talking, warning him about rocks or roots, letting him know what direction they were facing and remarking on the passing of trees, fields, and other landmarks they had seen on the way in. 

"And we're back to that bit of fence were we broke for some water."

"What happened? Sebastien and Sam are hurt? How bad?"

"You saw Sam, he got a nasty swipe across his face. Bleeding, but awake, alert and in no mortal danger. Might come out with some wicked scars though; there's the first. Sebastien got knocked down and the hag was on him trying to bite. Ves got it; she had a clear shot and no one else could hit it without endangering Sebastien. He didn't stand up so he might have got a dose of blindness, same as yourself. There you have it, three down, no one dead, and they got the hag with help. All's well, yeah?"

"No. They shouldn't have needed any help."

"You're too hard on them. The point was for them to learn and gain experience. They've done that, a few paid for those lessons in some pain, so it'll not be forgotten."

"You're not hard enough. I'm starting to think Geralt isn't either. It's not his first time teaching but he can't baby them or they won't be able to deal with a thing like this without him."

"Are you so sure that's a fair assessment? It's only been a few months. Geralt trained for years. So did you. You got hit tonight and it shook you. Might be that you're angry with them for what you see as them putting you in that position even thought it was you as taunted the wretched old thing."

"I'm not scared."

"No? I would be. Everything going dark all of a sudden and not being sure if it was permanent. I think anyone would be."

"Stop it."

"Stop what? All I did was say..."

"Stop trying to make me feel better."

"Fine. I'll let you be right miserable in peace, then."

They finished the walk back to town in silence.


	12. Blind

By the time they all got back to the vineyard, it was nearing sunrise. Several people had fallen asleep on the cart ride back and had to be prodded awake to shuffle off to the bunk houses. Regis took Sam inside to get started on stitching up his cheek. As soon as he was done he took a look at Roche's eyes. Sebastien's blindness, the result of the hag's slaver merely dripping on him, was already wearing off. Roche had, in fact, severed her tongue, and so she'd been unable to do more to her subsequent victim.

"She really got you, didn't she?" The Barber -surgeon sounded amused as he scrubbed the rest of the foetid residue off Roche's face and gave him a potion to drink.

"How long until it wears off, is all I care about."

"Geralt believes your vision should return by tomorrow, so long as no infection sets in. I concur." He rinsed Roche's eyes. Again. At least whatever this was stung less.

"And if there is an infection, then what?" He had to know.

"In the most severe cases, the blindness can become permanent." 

_Permanent_. He wanted to throw up at the very idea. 

At that, Regis bade them goodnight and took his satchel, already chock full of plant material, down to the alchemy lab.

"You going to get on alright alone?" Ves asked him from somewhere to his right.

"I'll be fine." His voice hitched a little on the last word. He tried to take a step and stubbed his toes on a cobble, nearly tripping.

She made a disgusted noise. 

"Don't lie. You can't see for shit, it stands to reason you'd need some help."

"You sound like Anna."

"I can't be the only one who makes any sense." Anna chimed in.

Vernon jumped, disgusted with himself for reacting at all. He hadn't known she was there. 

"Might as well admit when you're outnumbered, Roche." Geralt's voice approached from the house. "But I could go for a round of cards or some dice poker if anyone else wants to stay up. It's dawn already, anyway."

"I can make some tea, if folk want to gather for a bit." Anna offered. "I don't know that I can sleep yet. Night like that, a body needs some sunlight to feel safe enough to sleep again."

Roche stood in the courtyard for a moment, torn by the need to remain self reliant or at least make a show of it, and the fear of being left alone in darkness. How bad would his nightmares get if there was no discernible difference upon opening his eyes? He didn't think there was enough rye in the country to drown that out. 

"I'm not much for cards right now." He tried to joke. "But tea does sound good." 

They all ended up in Anna's kitchen, sipping their hot herbal drinks and talking. They went over the fight, discussing the students strength's and weaknesses. 

"You have a point, Roche." Geralt interrupted Ves' protests. "I don't think I was babying them, but I do think its too large a group to fight effectively against a single monster. Next time, why don't we try splitting them into groups. You can take half, I'll take the other half. Sound like a plan?"

"Sure. If it gives them more of a challenge, it can only help them learn."

"Says the man who got bitch slapped by a hag's tongue." He could almost hear Ves shaking her head.

Geralt and Ves played a couple halfhearted rounds of dice poker before Ves headed back to her cabin to catch up on sleep. Roche began to doze at some point not long after that, the chaise lounge in Anna's sitting room being as comfortable as it had appeared in the brief glimpse he'd caught of it earlier. 

Geralt headed out not long after but by that time, Vernon was asleep and didn't hear him go. Anna threw the quilt over him before she went off to her own bed.

He woke hours later, cuddled up in an unfamiliar quilt, to the unaccustomed sound of someone moving around. _Anna._ He recalled having tea, dozing off. He heard her bare feet pat on the wood floor, heard her use the chamber pot, the rustling of fabric as she dressed and then came down stairs. He heard the clink of dishes and water splashing. The rhythmic grinding of the coffee beans. She must think he was still asleep, she was trying to be quiet.

Sunlight was streaming in the windows and warming his legs. His eyesight had improved; squinting through his lashes he could make out most of the things around him surrounded with a blurred halo, the light burned and distances were nothing but fog. The relief he felt at being able to see again at all was almost enough to make him cry. As he stayed still and waited for the intense emotion to pass, he realized that there was something settling about having another person around. He liked listening in on Anna's morning routine. 

She had been a good guide last night, always telling him what was going on so he had some sense of where he was. Last night was proof that they didn't need to like each other to work together, if she remained reliable.

That she wanted nothing from him sexually was disappointing, but on the other hand, if he were brutally honest with himself, he would have to admit he couldn't blame her. 

He quit feigning sleep when he heard the water come to a boil and smelled the coffee brewing.

"Morning." Anna was pouring water over the grounds in a pottery filter basket lined with cheese cloth and waiting for it to drip through into the mug below. The whole setup looked not unlike one of Regis alchemy experiments, but the aroma was far more enticing...He took a deep appreciative breath.

"Morning?" He accepted the other mug. It was well past noon by his rough estimate.

"Is when someone wakes up. Doesn't matter what time of day it is." She said, matter of fact, as she added cream to her coffee

He grunted an acknowledgment and studied her over the rim as he sipped the piping hot liquid. She was barefoot, wearing loose trousers that fell over the tops of her feet and a long tunic with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was loose, hanging almost to her hips.

"Your eyes are better." It wasn't a question. She could feel him staring.

"Some. Mostly."

"That's good." 

"Very."

"You'll be back on your own today, then."

"Kicking me out already? Can I at least finish my coffee? Which is excellent, by the way." He felt his face heat realizing that he'd already slept here without asking and she might not have wanted him there at all past the original invitation for tea. And the coffee was excellent, not a trace of the bitterness he'd grown accustomed to. Better than Marlene's, though he knew better than to say so.

"Aye, no hurry. Just a question, was all." She clarified.

"Hm." He relaxed some, then, and enjoyed his coffee. If there was ever a place conducive to sitting in contemplation and sipping a hot drink, Anna's kitchen was it. He noted that the little jar of flowers had been replaced by sprigs of something pink. There was a painted stencil of vines winding around above the upper cabinets. The whole place just had a warmth to it that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the colors and the lived in feel it already had.

Geralt had offered to have his place painted but he'd declined, thinking it too...he wasn't sure what. Something men didn't do. He didn't cook much. Or at all, if one wasn't counting burnt toast and dry eggs. What did he care what the kitchen looked like so long as it existed? But now he sort of regretted not getting it done.

"What are you planning for the rest of today?" Her question caught him off guard.

"I don't know. I hadn't given it any thought." He answered honestly. With his eyesight still recovering, the list of things he could manage on his own was cut considerably.

"Do you want to help me with a project? It doesn't need your eyes." 

"Depends. What's the project?" 

The project turned out to be helping her with the extra greenhouse that Geralt had given her permission to set up. After something to eat, and Roche washing up and rinsing his own eyes again, she towed him outside, coffee and all, to show it off. The field workers must have set up the frame that day while they'd all been resting. All that remained was to attach the window panel sections for the walls and then to set up the tables. And of course, to add plants.

It had a glass ceiling made of even more windows that could be cranked up for airflow. The floor was clean stone tile. It was a quaint little structure and Roche had no problem picturing Anna puttering around with plants in it.

"You're adding gardens around the outside?" He could see sections of land, pitchforked clear of grass and sectioned off with ropes. A stack of flagstones had been dumped nearby.

"I am. Some of that will just be an extension of the main gardens; Regis says some of the things in the herb and flower gardens can do with being split already. It'll also help it blend visually with whats already planted. But some of the things I asked Geralt about are special and need particular light and water, so those'll go in the house when its finished. And the whole thing can be covered in a tarp and insulated with hay bales come winter."

"I don't know anything about plants." Roche protested.

"You don't have to. I just need you to hold up these sections while I get them hammered into place."

"Oh. Well, that I can do." 

They spent the rest of the afternoon working on the little glass house until it was time for supper; Regis had to come and get them. Roche's eyes had nearly recovered, or so he had thought. But he couldn't make out the shadow the man should have been casting across the stone floor. 

Still tired and out of sorts, he shrugged it off as a residual effect of the hags venom and followed his two cohorts over to the dining hall. By the time supper was finished, it had escaped his mind altogether.


	13. Patchwork

Spring passed in rain storms and warm weather into the redolant green promise of early summer.

The students continued practising, with the occasional minor contract or interpersonal drama thrown in to test them. Sam was proud of his newly scarred face. Pol got engaged. Duval was courting Lissette, who was studying alchemy and medicine with Regis now nearly full time. He'd agreed to train her ahead so she could apply to an academy next year with a solid groundwork for study already under her.

Anna's greenhouse was mostly full. She even had a dark room at the back for growing fungus. She'd gotten a shipment of something in, Roche didn't know what, but she was anxious about whether or not it would grow this far south. He overheard several hushed conversations she had with Geralt about it. He took it to mean she'd gotten whatever it was from Skellige. He also had the impression the plants were smuggled or poached or in some other way of dubious legality. It piqued his curiosity and he kept an eye out to snoop for any further clues, determined to dust off his investigative talents. Anything to keep busy.

Then he and Anna were given their first contract together; Kikimores. 

The Sansretour Marsh was muggy and moist. Gnats and other insects swarmed, awakened by the recent rains and warmth. He squinted through the clouds of them into the undergrowth, trying unsuccessfully to spot signs of the giant insectoids. A mosquito whined near his ear. He waved it away.

A few paces ahead, Anna had stopped. He could smell lemon and camphor and cinnamon; they'd slathered on Regis' homemade bug repellent. The alchemist had wanted a field test of his latest recipe. It was helping, though the bugs still got closer than Roche would have preferred. The mere sound of all those tiny wings humming was enough to make him itch. He swatted at his ear when the mosquito made another pass. He waited. 

Anna held up a hand. He moved up, peering over her shoulder, question unasked. She pointed. 

A clearing up ahead on the right. A hint of movement. The temperature went up as they stepped into it, sunlight beaming down as well as steaming up from the moist ground; heat trapped in the sheltered circle of heavier foliage. It held the swampy rank odor of dead plant matter and earth too wet to ever dry out properly and a strange smell he could only think of as belonging to bugs. 

Something had made tunnels and mounds all over the clearing, keeping the encroaching plant life from filling in. 

He spotted the first one; the size of a large dog and chitinous with a splotchy dark gray hide spotted with dark red. It lumbered into the clearing, tugging something behind it; the remains of a deer carcass some scavenger had left unattended. It worked and worried the carcass in an effort to tow it towards on of the smaller tunnels. In the mud around the base of the mound, Roche could see bones, a scrap of fabric, and part of a shoe.

Another one, this the size of a pony, came up from a tunnel pushing a mound of wet earth out ahead of it, re-sculpting it's barrow. 

Soon he was aware of at least half a dozen of the creatures shuffling about on whatever business kikimores had on a daily basis. 

He motioned to Anna to retreat a little ways. 

"What?" She murmured when they had done so.

"Fire? My Igni sign is too shaky to manage that. I thought a torch might be better." 

He stooped and began rummaging in his pack for it, looking up when Anna handed him one. 

"Ah. Thanks." So she had had the same thought. 

He hesitated as to how to light it. Building a fire would take time and attract attention.

"Well, don't look at me. I can't cast for shite." It was true. 

Geralt had begun attempting to teach them the magical signs that marked Witchers apart from other hunters. Roche had managed a weak Igni the other day; scaring himself far more than he'd singed the target for all that. But it had been there. Anna hadn't been able to even come close.

Well, probably better that she couldn't set him on fire. 

Swallowing his nerves, he glanced around reflexively to make sure no one could see him. Anna caught that and rolled her eyes at him, making a get- on- with- it gesture. It took several tries, by the end of which he had some vertigo, but he managed to light the torch.

Taking a moment to oil their blades, they made one last weapons and armor check. Ready for the fight, they headed back into the clearing.

The first kikimore raised it's larger front legs in a threatening gesture before running at them. Roche tossed out the torch and then took one of its front legs with a solid blow. He stabbed through its head when it canted over, flailing for balance. One down.

Another kikimore rushed over, and another. The deer carcass, now stuck halfway into a tunnel, was forgotten. More of the insectoids surfaced as the vibrations of the fighting brought them to the defense.

Anna parried and ducked, cutting under what would have been the chin on any other creature. She stabbed out the eye on another pass. Shiny dark bug legs stamped angrily, the kikimore reared up and she skewered it through the abdomen. 

As they died, they curled up like spiders, legs folding inward. 

A maw of overlarge needle teeth snapped toward his leg. He kicked out, using the momentum to tumble away. A large claw-like leg swung after him. Then it spit. He felt the impact as heat and pressure more so than pain. His armor had taken the blow. Rolling away, he got back to his feet and swung. His blade bit into the creatures head, slicing its face. It backed off, shaking and rubbing at itself with a foreleg. He kept after it, hacking and cutting without mercy.

More insectoids surfaced. He retreated back closer to the torch, catching it with a toe to kick forward, increasing their range and encouraging the overgrown bugs to scatter. He kicked a little too vigorously, it landed on the brink of one tunnel mouth, teetering and almost sliding out of sight before settling still. 

Anna had five dead now and was slicing into a sixth, her blade grating against the thicker patches of its shell. She had the sling of bombs in her off hand; she was trying to get near the main tunnel.

Roche waded back in, keeping his blade moving, killing two more and driving the last kikimore back. He parried, cut, stabbed, trying to clear her a path. 

"Ann, toss them!" He was standing almost on top of the tunnel now.

"Catch them, then!" She lobbed the bombs over, blade going back to work on a smaller one that had scuttled up behind her, claw caught in her pant leg and threatening to pull her down.

With the last kikimores either dying or distracted, he lit the bombs off the torch and dropped them down. He snuffed out the torch in the damp earth.

"Come on, McCready, it's done. Time to go!" They had a few scant moments to get clear of the blast.

Anna was tugging her blade free. She turned to him and nodded her acknowledgment. 

Then several things happened at once.

Roche felt the ground quake under him and sensed, rather than heard, the arrival of a kikimore warrior boiling up from underground in a shower of fresh dirt. At the same time, Anna's face registered alarm at the sight of it and she began to shout a warning to him. 

As the dirt pattered down around him and Anna's cry sounded in his ears, he felt a white hot line of pressure catch and spin him like a toy, throwing him down to the ground where he continued to slide and roll until he splashed to a stop in a marshy low puddle at the base. 

Anna was over him then, stabbing and hacking, shouting at him to get up.

Adrenaline got him to his feet. Aware that the red color in the water wasn't right and that his right arm didn't want to work properly, he kept his blade in close to his body, defending as the massive insectoid advanced, jumping down the mound with a speed belied by its bulk. 

It jumped again. 

Roche went down to one knee, bracing his pommel against his hip, the point aimed at the underbelly where the carapace was thinner. Anna hacked one of its legs away in an arc as it flew past her. 

It landed, impaled on Roche's blade, just as the bombs went off.

In the aftermath, they staggered away, covered in dirt and bits of smouldering innards, gagging on the stench. Roche's shoulder was gashed, laid open along the shoulder blade down towards his opposite hip and tapering off just short of his spine. Blood ran, hot and sticky, down his flank.

When they stopped to camp for the night, Anna heated some whiskey in the fire, gave him the rest, and set out needle and thread.

He still yelled when she peeled his dried- stiff shirt away and poured the hot liquid over the wound, gnashed his teeth into the leather of his gauntlet and cursed fit to curl a trolls pubic hairs while she stitched him up. 

She was no healer, but her hands were steady, which he appreciated, and she didn't flinch at the sight of blood. Though when he said as much, she reminded him that most women saw the stuff once a month, much more if they'd given birth, and so tended not to cringe; it was men who more likely to faint. The argument at least took his mind off the pain some. He appreciated that more.

"V? This stuff needs retiring before it gets you killed." She indicated his torn surcoat, damaged mail, and ripped gambeson, all years too old now and patched beyond use. A spatter of acid spit by one of the kikimores had dissolved the coat, weakened the mail, and the later attack had shredded right through to the bone. "You're lucky it didn't cost you an arm."

"I'll mend it when we get back." He agreed. 

"Mend what? It's more patches that protection. You need new armor."

He went quiet after that. Not for avoiding an argument, but on account of not knowing how to explain it. That was _his_. He knew it needed replacing, but it was the last pieces of uniform he had left. The last bit of his life as commander of the Blue Stripes. He _could not_ get rid of it. 

Regis had to redo his stitches when they got home; pronouncing Anna's work serviceable but so ugly as to be an affront to healers everywhere.

"Yeah, well, I'm no seamstress." Was her only reply. "And he was already ugly."

Geralt took one look at the state his armor was in and ordered him to replace it. 

"New gambeson, new mail, new buckles on these at the very least. That surcoats a loss. All of it. Shit, Roche how many years have you been relying on this? Thought the commander of a special forces unit would know better." _Damned if the witcher didn't know how to rub it in._

Much as they didn't, couldn't understand, they also weren't wrong. That was what festered about it so much. He could patch and sew all he wanted, eventually it had to be replaced. It was simple truth.

He still argued.

"I'll just reinforce that side. Add a patch here. It'll be fine. And you weren't there when that armor stopped a bolt fired at close range. It doesn't have to be pretty; it just has to work."

He missed the look Geralt and Regis exchanged with Anna.

No one missed his destructive fit of rage three days later, however, when while attempting to mend the damned surcoat, the fabric shredded apart every place he could stick the needle and thread through it. He trashed a good part of his cabin, swearing and screaming out his rage and denial, before falling to his knees, feeling wrung out and empty of everything. _It was over. No saving it this time._

His surcoat was dead.

Even Ves had avoided him, sheltering up at the main house with Geralt and the others. 

Anna was the only person who poked her head in to check on him. She'd not flinched from him one bit, pulling his fists, knuckles scraped and bleeding from where he'd punched the training dummy and then a wall, down so his hands rested in her lap. 

"I understand it. I do. After my husband died, I got off that ship with all of his things. I let his son take most of it, but I kept the clothes. Still had his scent, you see. And I would sleep at night with his old shirts balled up for a pillow. Felt like I still had him with me some. Then one day, I was wearing my favorite one, and I spilled coffee. No help for it, it had to go into the wash. Course, it didn't smell right after that. Stupid, but I felt like I'd lost him all over again. I must have bawled harder over that shirt than I had when he'd died." 

"You went and made that old thing a representation of your whole old unit, didn't you?"

He'd known she was right. It wasn't the surcoat. Not really. It never had been.

"I...It was the last thing...the last piece..." He'd attempted to explain. It had hit him then. What had happened. They were gone. 

She eased an arm over his shoulders and just held him, not saying a single word as the dry broken sobs had wracked him. Once he'd calmed, he'd been ashamed. 

She'd chided him for pulling his stitches then, made him drink some water, and sensing that the storm had passed, left him alone again. 

He'd cleaned it all up and thrown everything, including the remains of the gambeson, into the scrap heap, feeling punky and hollowed out like a rotten log. Then, he'd gone to Regis to have his stitches reset.

As soon as his arm was healed enough, he went into the city and got some new armor. A new surcoat. Heavy dark gray diamond quilted linen that hung down to his ankles, accented with silver studs, fastened with black leather buckles, new mail and a new gambeson thick with new padding. Very protective. It felt good, if alien. Not like the second skin his old armor had become. 

Dependable, if not flashy. Truthfully, it was better quality than his old gear had been. That hurt to admit. 

But the damage was already done. 

The students wouldn't meet his eyes after that. Fear of his temper and unstable mood worked to undo a good part of the trust he'd built up thus far. Like the surcoat, it was all coming unraveled. He didn't know how to mend it and hesitated to try for fear of making it worse.


	14. Exposed

He and Regis were walking one evening beneath the light of a full moon when he noticed it again.

Sleepless, it had become his new nighttime routine for weeks. He trained for about an hour longer than everyone else, tiring himself as much as could be. Then, he got cleaned up, got his gear tended to, and took about an hours nap. When he woke, shortly after full dark, he filled his flask, made sure he had his pipe, armor and weapons, and wandered out to meet Regis. He had found the man's comments to be correct; being outdoors in the cool twilight hours was calming and far preferable to tossing and tangling in his blankets, unrested and enraged by the utter futility of it all. 

They discussed all manner of things on their walks. Roche would smoke and take nips from his flask and listen to the other wax philosophical about nearly everything. He learned more about plants simply by exposure, compared military experiences, swapped stories about Geralt, life at court, and what Roche thought of Toussaint so far. At the end of the walk, they would sometimes sit in silence for a few minutes while Roche cleaned out his pipe and Regis scraped mud from his boots. It was companionable in that odd respectful way of not needing to talk all the time. By then, it was usually nearing dawn, and he found himself able to sleep for a few scant hours before Geralt sent someone around to wake him again.

He was still exhausted by day, but it was a less irritable sort of fatigue overall. Long term, it wouldn't be tenable; he knew that. But short term, it meant fewer nightmares. That was all he cared about for the time being. So they walked.

By light of the full moon, the fields almost glowed. Spiderwebs caught dew, ground fog formed in the low little valleys, and crickets chirped. A bat flew overhead, chasing some night flying insect or other.

"Bats are quite common in this area. I think a new group of them have moved into one of the abandoned silos belonging to our former neighbor." Regis paused and watched it flit by, a hand shielding his eyes from the moonlight to better track its silhouette across the star strewn sky.

Which was when Roche happened to notice that his hand wasn't shading anything, really. A glance down at their feet solidified his observation. The light was bright enough to throw his shadow, thinned and wavering compared to its daylight self, across the ground.

Regis had no such thing.

"What are you?" The question was out before he could think better of it.

"I'm an alchemist, as I've told you."

"No. Not that! You haven't got a shadow."

"Ah. So the moon has revealed me. Tell me, Master Roche, what have you been learning from Geralt, hm? Can you not think of beings who might be other than human, yet pose no particular danger to you? If you must know, I shall tell you, but I implore you to consider your host. He trusts me. Have I given you cause not to?"

"I don't know. Not yet, that I know of. And Geralt isn't infallible. You might be the sort who could bewitch even a witcher."

Regis laughed at that, head thrown back. The light glinted off wickedly sharp teeth. 

"Bloody fucking hell!" Roche stumbled back, one hand on the hilt of his ever present sword; eyes wide in horror. He knew now. The list of things he'd been reading about was a long one, but he only recalled one creature now who didn't throw a shadow and that might have a teeth like that. "You're a vampire!"

Unconsciously, he was stepping back, back. 

Regis stopped laughing. He shrugged, seeming sad, and nodded. "I am."

"Gods preserve me." It was the most religious thing he had ever said. He wasn't sure he actually believed in any gods; all the worst things he'd ever seen had been wrought by hands entirely too mortal. If there were any, they cared not one wit for protecting those who prayed to them, that was for sure. He said it anyway.

"It's quite alright." Regis stepped toward him. "You have my word that I have harmed no one here. As I said, Geralt trusts me. We've been close for some years; he knows what I am. And what I am not."

"I don't care... Just...just stay the hell away from me." Roche turned on his heel, more shaken than he cared to admit, and walked stiff legged, back to the house, leaving Regis standing alone in the fields with his head hung in resignation. 

_A gods-damned, motherfucking vampire. Right here. Right under their noses. He'd been walking, at night no less, with a blood drinking, murdering vampire. What the fuck was Geralt thinking?!_

At first, he had headed towards his own cabin, meaning to slam and lock the door and drink himself blind, which seemed the only logical response to what he'd learned, but on second thought, he veered to the main building and slammed his fist against the door until Geralt opened it, looking for the emergency.

"Did you know?" Roche pushed past the witcher without an invitation.

"Roche, it's late. What....?" Geralt yawned.

"Did you fucking know?!"

"Did I know what? You're not making any sense."

"Regis, or whatever it calls itself, is a vampire! A monster!"

"I know."

The witcher's calm unperturbed response cut his ranting short.

"And please don't refer to him as 'it' again. It's insulting."

"I....He...You knew."

"Course. Not immediately; there was a lot going on when we first met all those years ago, but I did figure it out. Thought it might cause problems. No records of any vampire and a witcher being friends, and I didn't want the contract. But every time I told him to fuck off, he'd leave only to come back an hour or a day later. He found it immensely funny; that I was powerless to get rid of him. That I needed him. But he's saved my life and Ciri's and Yen's, too. There isn't anyone I trust more."

"I should have realized, or guessed, that you knew." Anger, fear, and surprise wearing away, Roche was suddenly dead tired. And ashamed of himself. He scrubbed a hand up over his face, disconnectedly noticing that his beard was getting rather carried away with itself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd shaved. Probably about the same time he'd last slept a whole night through. "I...apologize. I could have handled that better."

"Did you attack him?"

"What? No. I was shocked, not stupid."

"Slim difference sometimes. But not the worst response he's gotten to being discovered. Make your apology to him, not to me."

"Right. Are you sure...?"

"Spit it out, Vernon." The emphasis Geralt put on his first name made it sound derogatory.

_Well, what had he expected? 'I implore you to consider your host'...._

_'You haven't got any manners at all, have you?'_

If he'd been less exhausted he might have been worried by the way his brain wasn't tracking details anymore. He felt stuck in some sort of mire, weighed down and too heavy by far.

"That you aren't...that he hasn't entranced you, or anything."

"You do realize we're sleeping together, right?" Geralt arched a brow at him.

"You are." Roche repeated dumbly. "I had suspected that. But you're not concerned? Even a little?" _What is it I actually want him to say, here?_ Random questions served no purpose. A plan. He didn't have a plan. That was the problem. No interrogator, no leader, went into any situation like this without a plan.

"No. I told you, I trust him."

"But you were the one to point out that hypnosis was risk." He felt dizzy. He was weaving on his feet. "How can you be so sure."

"I am." Geralt frowned. "Let it go. Do you need to sit?"

"I'm not some fainting maiden, you son of a bitch." The vertigo was getting worse. He was _not_ going to fall apart here, _not_ where someone would see. He clenched his fists and teeth tighter, forcing his spine to lock upright into some semblance of alertness. 

"I'm serious, Roche. You look like shit. When was the last time you slept?"

"Sleep's the last thing I need." His chest felt tight. If he slept, he'd dream. The nightmares. The last time he hadn't had a plan, the last time they'd all been alive...

He couldn't get enough air. Outside. He needed to get back outside. Vampire. There was a vampire outside.

Shit.

He threw off Geralt's hands when the witcher grasped at him, tried to steer him to a chair.

He heard him call to Marlene, who slept in the room above the kitchen, to get some tea going. Things whirled, his heartbeat too loud in his hearing, leaving the conversations muffled and out of focus. He thought he heard the door open and then bang shut again.

Then there was a pair of warm yellow eyes and gravelly voice telling him to relax, that he was safe.

The world crawled to halt, the vertigo eased off.

".....had a panic attack. I've seen it before."

"I can help him, but he won't accept it." Regis' voice. "Geralt, what you're asking of me is....."

"Tea's ready."Marlene's interruption stopped whatever he'd been about to say.

There was a scent; steam, chamomile and maybe some mint, masking something with an earthier odor.

When he came back to himself, Vernon Roche was laid out flat on his back on the floor with a pillow under his feet. Mortification, more than the prone position, surged blood to his face.

_Unfit._

The word had a choke hold on him. Unfit for duty. A soldier could excuse many things, but that was never one. It was never an acceptable thing to ask. It was a punishment. Even after all his years of command, when he had ordered men to the hospital or out of the service entirely, knowing it was the right thing to do, it still reeked of failure.

_I have to be fit. I have nothing else_. He struggled to sit up and only succeeded in toppling over. He felt drunk. But he wasn't. He could have handled that.

"Hold still. Not so fast." Geralt had him by the shoulder. "Might go easier if you sit for awhile."

"I'm fine!" He snarled, shrugged the witcher away. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"Sign of Axii. Calms people, makes them open to suggestion. I suggested to you that you needed to sit down. You keeled right over. So I'll ask you again, when was the last time you got a full nights sleep?"

"So I haven't been sleeping that well. So what? I'll take a nap this afternoon, if it will get you off my case."

"Roche." Geralt wondered if this is what it had been like for Nenneke all those years ago; seeing something wrong in friend that went beyond the physical. He didn't know if he could help. He knew if he could do anything, it would still be dependent on Roche actually letting him. 

_"What?!"_

"You're slipping up. Everyone else figured out Regis was a vampire weeks ago."

"...What! They did? Bloody hell."

"You train every night, for too long. You're not improving, you're no longer aware of what you're doing. We had to make you get new gear. I know Regis offered his services as barber surgeon; you ought to take him up on it. He's damn good at it. And I think you'll benefit from having some better options than dropping dead of exhaustion at the worst possible moment."

Roche glowered. He couldn't trust himself to speak.

"Will you at least consider it?"

"Fine. I'll consider it." He swallowed and slowly got to his feet, hating how wrung out he felt.

Marlene wrapped the steeped tea kettle in a towel to keep it warm and handed it off to him. "You might take some of that over to Anna, if she's back yet. So it doesn't go to waste."

He mumbled a confused sort of thank you, ushered out by well meaning gestures and good nights and wandered, a bit dazed, toward his own cabin. 

On the way, he stopped, spotting movement. He flinched in the direction of his sword, only to recognize Anna, Ves, and Lissette returning from somewhere. They were flushed and breathing hard, lightly armored and looked for all the world like they had just gone running. 

"Ves?" He called to his former second. " What are you ladies doing out so late?"

"Sorry. It was my.." Lissette was cut off by Ves' elbow in her ribs.

"None of your business." Ves huffed. "We've not got a curfew."

"Same time tomorrow?" Anna asked.

"Sure, I'm game. I had fun." Ves grinned and she and Lissette continued off their bunks.

Anna waved as they left. 

"Since when are they friendly?" Roche asked. "I was under the impression she didn't like Ves."

"Impressions can change. Is that Marlene's chamomile and valerian tea I smell?"

"I guess." He shrugged. "I was supposed to offer to share it with you."

"Supposed to? Meaning you're not?" She swayed a bit on her feet, stifling a yawn.

"Are you going to tell me what you three got up to tonight? Or am I not allowed to know?"

"I thought you hated questions and conversation."

"Impressions can change...No, ok, that's..." He broke off at the arch of her brow. "I'm..I'm not having a very good night and I was wondering..if..I'd prefer to not be alone. No, I don't mean it like that."

She stared at him for so long, it began to make him regret saying anything.

"You're being completely honest with me right now, aren't you?"

He nodded.

"Alright, but I'm knackered." She heaved a sigh. "Don't be offended if I fall asleep."

"Deal."

They settled in Anna's kitchen and sipped the still hot tea. She explained how they'd been helping Lissette get caught up on some of the sword and crossbow techniques she'd been struggling with that the boys had made fun of her for; hence their middle of the night girls only outings.

He told her about his rude reaction to Regis.

"I think, if you apologize, he'll accept." She advised. " But I also think he'll know if you don't mean it."

"Right. Course. Geralt said as much." He did not mention the episode with Geralt. He didn't need to go advertising his further weaknesses to her. 

"Did he tell you about the Gharkain?"

"No. What happened?"

"The group he sent day afore yesterday came back. They ran across something bigger than they were expecting. Geralt expects its a Gharkain. he wants us to go and have a look tomorrow."

"Fine."

He left Anna's less than an hour later, still feeling wrung out and loose-limbed. He passed out and slept all through the night. Come morning, he had the impression he'd had strange dreams, but seeing as he couldn't recall any of them upon waking, it hardly mattered.

All told, he was more than ready to head out for a few days.


	15. Of Philosophy and Lesser Vampires

They headed up north through Fox Hollow and past to a series of caves. Passing through the tiny village on the way, all was quiet. Given the time of day, Roche suspected that some folks should have been around, but with groups of would-be witchers passing through and a gharkain active nearby, it didn't strike him as too odd that most folks were finding excuses to stay indoors. 

There were old elven ruins perched along the cliffs and spreading into the woods above the town. He watched Anna marvel at them as they broke for lunch. Taking it in, he tried to see the beauty she did when she looked at them. Architecturally, the ruins were still marvelous. Arches and vaulted ceilings remained as broken stone bones jutting from the soil. Mosaic tiles peeked from heap of debris. 

Whoever had built it, they had put a lot of artful design and planning and engineering into it. Roche thought of the palace back in Vizima; its grand stonework lording over the humbler stone, wood and thatched buildings that the rest of the city was made of. He'd once thought that building the most beautiful, with its soaring windows and the throne surrounded by its mantle of filigree stonework. Now he realized it was nothing but a mimicry. 

But if elves had had all of this, how had it all come to fall? Looking around, he noticed signs of damage from spells or catapults. War had done for this place, a long time ago. He tried to imagine the grief and horror of the people who had once lived here, watching as their beloved homes were destroyed, their families killed, by the encroaching humans. And if elves, in all their magic and eons of high society, hadn't been able to hang on, to weather the onslaught, what then was the point of building such things?

A rhetorical question, but he asked it out loud.

_Love_, Anna replied. They did it out of love.

Looking around again, he felt as if he were on the cusp of understanding it; of glimpsing a sliver of the reason to the bitterness, the sorrow, the hopelessness, he had seen in elves over the years. If they had loved this land, their homes, so completely as to express it in every smooth-chiseled block that formed each arch, every carefully placed tile, then how deep and terrible the wound must be to have suffered the loss of such a labor, an expression of love, all to the greed, ignorance, and intolerance of others.

Having loved Temeria enough to risk the lives of all his men,to break his oaths of service, to break his own heart and honor over it, to keep it, if only in name and not for himself, Roche felt echoes of that pain on a smaller scale. What, if anything, ever lasted? Was anything worth it, in the end?

The thought was disturbing. 

"You've been awful quiet." Anna commented after they had continued their trek to the caves in relative silence, Roche lost in thought.

"Sorry. Just...I don't know. I was thinking about those ruins. About how things don't last, no matter how much work goes into them. It's put me in a soul searching sort of mood, I suppose."

"Never thought you one for that. Seemed more a man of action and little regret, to me."

"You're not wrong. I am...I was. Now...? My decisions got a lot of good men killed. I just have to wonder what it was all for? I keep asking myself, what is Temeria? I told myself that's what I did it all for. Because I love my country and I wanted it to remain free. Then I had to sell it on all those mens lives to an Empire I despise. I did things I hate myself for...I killed...But now I don't even know. Was any of it right? Did any of it matter? Regret...yes. I have that. I hate it, but there it is."

"Ah." Anna sighed. "I can't advise you on it. We have a saying in Skellige; 'May the gods grant you one hundred years to live and one more to repent'. But maybe a year isn't enough for some and why wait until the last minute to make amends?" She shrugged. "That's all gone and done now, in any case. You can't change it. Beating yourself for it doesn't help anything."

"Do you regret anything?" 

"Sure enough. My first husband for one. But live and learn, as they say, and I divorced him as soon as I could afford to. Some of the things I did while raiding I wish had gone better. I've killed a few that maybe didn't deserve to die as badly as they did. In the end, we're all mortal, and we all have our failings. I try not to repeat the ones I already know about."

_Divorced. So that was what happened._

"I think maybe I'm having a hard time breaking out of the habit of some of mine." He mused aloud. "The military doesn't allow for mistakes. Officers, commanders; we have to be infallible or men won't trust to follow our orders."

"At least you're aware of that. It's more than some ever know. But enough philosophy for now; there's our cave."

Roche could see it, a dark maw of an opening in the cliff. As they stepped inside, the air took on the chill of a place that never saw sunlight and still held a breath of winters frosts in it. The shadows deepened. 

"Torch?" Roche asked after a few minutes, voice expanding into the weirdly echoing gloom.

"Not yet." Anna's whisper came back. "I can see well enough and it might make a target of us."

Roche frowned. He'd thought his vision pretty damned good; but he'd be lying if he said he could see well in these deep shadows. How was Anna still able to? _Had that damned hag damaged his eyesight after all? Or was he just getting old?_

Eventually they came to a place where the main cave branched off in different directions. 

"Careful, we don't want to get lost down here." He cautioned.

Anna snorted. Then she considered each passage. It might have been his imagination, but she seemed to be breathing more deeply, almost smelling about.

"Down that way." She stated and set off.

"How can you know that?!" Roche demanded as he hurried to keep up. 

"The other tunnels smell like cave; rock, water, dirt. That sort of thing. This way smells like something else. Something dead."

He stopped and sniffed, experimenting to see if he could detect it, too. He was ready to give up and ask her how she was so sure when a faint whiff of something like carrion reached his nostrils.

Vowing to pay closer attention to his surroundings, he followed her down to where the gharkain was laired.

The fight went about as hard as he had anticipated. They both got caught in a concussive shock wave and knocked down before they had even spotted the creature. Roche wasn't sure how to judge the age of such a being, but if the size was anything to go by, then it was old. It was small wonder that the students had deemed it beyond them. It fought with crushing strength and animal ferocity sharpened with the intelligence borne of experience. By the time it fell dead, they were both out of breath and dripping sweat. Suddenly, the cool shelter of the cave seemed stifling.

Staggering back out into daylight, they headed back to Fox Hollow to see about getting some food and much earned drinks. Anna pointed out that a bath wouldn't hurt either, now that they were sweaty and stinking and splattered with gore.

They turned in the gharkain's head for the posted reward. The man who handled the transaction kept turning aside to cough into his sleeve; a courtesy to be sure, but one that prompted Roche to ask him if he was ill.

"Aye, we've had the croup come through something fierce this season. Late, is what it is." His annoyed tone broke off in another round of deep phlegmy coughing. 

"I don't suppose you could direct us to the bath house?" Anna winced and took a step back as the man spat a thick glob of mucus into the dirt to one side.

"Oh, well, it's closed. Owner's out sick. Same with the tavern. Sorry, but you might be better off stopping out at the hot springs on your way back, so long as you don't mind the smell of wet farts."

Now that he was looking for it, Roche noticed a sheen to the man's eyes. Fever. 

"Of course. We may do that. Good day." Roche thanked him, took the coins and then Anna's arm, steering her away before she could ask anything else.

She pulled free of him as soon as they had rounded the corner. 

"What is wrong with you?" She waited until he let go of her.

"Anna, I don't think these people have the croup. His cough is deep and he doesn't sound like he's barking when it happens. I think this is influenza. I've had that. It's highly contagious."

Anna's eyes went wide. "The flu? Here? How?"

"How should I know. Trader could've brought it in, easily enough. Or nearly anyone whose been anywhere. Usually, it comes through in the winter..."

"Should we tell someone?"

"Who? Everyone in this town already knows, or soon will. I'm surprised we didn't pass a warning marker on the way in, unless we missed it somehow."

"Well, lets go then. I've never had it and I don't want to."

They headed out to the hot springs, looking forward to a long soothing soak in the mineral rich waters.

The springs were empty; they had the place to themselves, though signs of common use showed in the number of candles, lanterns, empty bottles, a towel rack some thoughtful soul had set up, and the few stray bits of clothing lost behind. Steam rose to a fog in the still air. There was an odor; not quite as bad as the wet fart smell they'd been warned about, but definitely something sulfurous and distinct to hot springs. Still better than gharkain guts.

On mutual agreement, they turned their backs to each other while stripping and washing. 

"Your scar's healing well. Does it still hurt?" Anna's passing comment made him pause. _Had she been looking?_ A warmth that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water and which felt suspiciously like blushing rose through him. Was it too much to hope that she had liked what she'd seen? Probably. Still...

"Some. Worse at the end of the day." He allowed, risking a glance over his shoulder. 

Veiled in the soft fog, Anna was turned away from him, leaning to one side while she combed something through her long hair. Suds still slid down her form, accentuating the muscles on her back and arms. The swell of her buttocks vanished beneath the waterline. He caught sight of the tantalizing curvature of one breast where it hung, revealed in flashes by shifting strands of hair.

"Are you peeking?" She demanded.

"No." He grinned and looked away again before he got into trouble.

"I did." She was laughing. "What are all the rest of your scars from?" 

Roche choked. He hadn't expected her to be honest. Were they flirting again? His stomach did an odd little flip of happiness over the idea.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." He'd caught sight of a few lines from blade wounds, one puckered mark of a burn...

"Fair." 

"So..ah, which one did you want to know about?"

"Hm. The one on your left shoulder?"

They spent the rest of the time soaking in the hot water, hidden occasionally from one another by clouds of steam, laughing and teasing and sharing stories.

It was one of the best afternoons Roche could remember.


	16. Pandemic

At some point on the journey back to Corvo Bianco, Roche noticed that Anna was lagging. He slowed his pace. Then again. Then suggested a break. 

"No. I'd rather we keep going." She tilted her head for a moment and then asked, "What did it feel like? When you first got the influenza?"

"Sore throat. Fever. Aches and pains. And I was so fucking tired. I slept all the time. Then the coughing and the snot settled in. It was disgusting. It took about two weeks to get over. Three or more before I felt well again. Our whole unit got it. Some of them died."

"Well, shit."

Looking at her, he felt a lurch of trepidation at the glassy sheen to her eyes. Perspiration stood out on her brow, though she huddled in on herself as though she felt cold.

"Shit. McCready, come here." He ordered. "Are you sick?"

She came over without argument. That was when he knew it was bad. A cautious hand to her forehead confirmed what he had expected; high fever climbing higher.

"Yeah, that's about right. So, you want to press on and pass out in your own bed? Because if you lie down here, you might not get back up. I'd rather not carry you."

"Yes, please." 

_Anna, being meek and polite?_ He swallowed the sudden dread.

"I will carry you, though. If I have to." He'd meant it as an offer of aid, but she took it as a threat and picked up her pace.

It might have been easier if he had carried her. As they traveled, her fever rose. Her face took on a grayish pallor that worried him. And she staggered and wove in her exhausted, near-delirious state, often veering off the road so that he would have to stay her arm and steer her back on track, at which point she would snarl at him.

What was with Anna and snarling anyway? Those growls came from her chest and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Maybe, like Regis, she was _something_. She had a shadow; vampire was out.

If only he could figure out what. He added to his mental list of projects.

_Buy some more books. And a shelf for same._

_Figure out what Anna is doing with those mushrooms in the greenhouse._

_Figure out what Anna is._

Once they reached the gate and he saw Sam crossing the yard, he yelled for help and hoisted her up into his arms; insisting on carrying her at least that much. By then, she was so weak she didn't even struggle. Regis met them in the lower courtyard, medic's case in hand.

"I'm afraid there's not much I can do to speed her through this. I've given her something for the fever, as that is the greatest risk. She needs rest and plenty of liquids." The vampire advised once they had gotten her into bed and she was sleeping.

Roche, and Geralt, who'd come in to see what the fuss was about and how the contract had gone, nodded. 

"I'm sure in two weeks you two will be back to hating one another." Geralt squeezed his shoulder, a little awkwardly. 

Which made Roche wonder how bad he must look? It was only when he swallowed the question before asking it and realized it hurt his throat that he understood. He was getting sick, too.

"Gods-fucking-damn it! I've already had this; I'm not supposed to get it again!"

Regis checked his forehead. "No fever yet. And you're thinking of the chicken pox. Influenza has many different varieties. One can almost always catch it again."

Roche swore viciously.

He spent the next two weeks splitting his time between sleeping and feeling lousy at his place, and days were he felt well enough to lend a hand; everyone but Regis and Geralt, neither of whom could catch such an illness, had come down with it.

He stirred soup and poured juice. He read out loud to Anna and later to Ves, Pol, and Marlene. He was sitting with Marlene when she died, fever too hard on her old body. They wrapped her in a sheet, Geralt dug a grave out in one of the fields of wildflowers she had like best, and they laid her to rest under a simple wooden marker. Geralt hung a windchime made from spoons on a nearby tree branch. When asked about it, all Geralt would say was that it had to do with a joke between him and Marlene.

Two days later, Sebastien died. They had thought, up until then, that he had been on the mend. Duval was too sick to attend his funeral, which his family arranged with all sorts of pomp that the young knight hadn't quite earned and now, never would.

Sam had been the last to succumb to being sick, having hidden the onset behind willpower and a brave face.

Anna was out of bed by then and trying to help, like Roche, through the throws of her own illness, as much as she could. 

Sam put up a fight when they tried to put him to bed, however.

"Stop it. Don't. I'm fine." 

Roche backed away. He'd been trying to help the fever addled young man into his pajamas.

"Easy. I'm not going to hurt you but you probably shouldn't sleep in your clothes."

"I'll change later. I don't need to sleep."

"Well, you could always go home, if you prefer. You're from Toussaint, aren't you?"

Apparently it was the exactly wrong thing to say. 

"No! Don't make me go home! Please! Don't let them take me home...They'll lock me away again."

"Lock you..? Son, what are you taking about?" Roche was wary. He and Anna exchanged a look. It could just be the fever talking...but if not, something was very wrong in the background of where Sam came from. 

"I'm not your son!" 

"Obviously." Roche rolled his eyes but stopped when it hurt to do so."Now, put your damned pajamas on before you fall over."

A knock sounded nearby on the frame. Lissette was standing in the doorway. She looked exhausted.

"If you're all done here, Regis and I could use some help with Duval and someone needs to make another batch of soup for lunch.” She turned and left again without waiting for a response.

Cornered, shoulders hunched in misery, and trying hard not to shiver too much, Sam grudgingly pulled his shirt over his head and reached for the pajama top. His chest was wrapped in bandages.

“When did you hurt your ribs?” Roche couldn't recall seeing any serious injuries, and as he'd been overseeing some of the sparring, he assumed he would have at least known if any had happened. Although it was possible Sam had simply gone to Regis without saying anything. Foolish, but possible.

“I...I didn't hurt them.” Sam looked mortified. 

“Then why in the hell...?” Roche's next question was cut off as Anna laid a steadying hand on his arm.

“Sam wouldn't, by any chance, have initially been a short form for Samantha, would it?”

Sam looked away, tears shining in his eyes unshed. It was answer enough.

“And your parents don't approve. Is that why you don't want us to contact them?”

“They don't know I'm here. They locked me in my room for a week after I cut my hair...Called priests and wizards to try and 'treat' me....” Sam ran a self conscious hand across the back of his neck. “I might go mad if I ever have to wear a dress again. It's better this way. I'm not their daughter and they won't accept me as their son. Geralt knows I'm here without their permission, but he doesn't know why. Are you going to tell him?”

Roche frowned and hesitated. This was out of his expertise. He knew there were men who had kept secrets, even in the military. Hell, he'd been hiding his damned ears under that stupid chaperon for years. When asked why he never took the stupid thing off. he just said it was his lucky hat. Superstition was always more believable than truth. Privacy in a small unit was a premium. But there had been just as much hazing, teasing, bullying. Especially to junior officers or new recruits. His experiences left him with no useful advise, either way.

Fortunately, Anna handled it better. 

“I think its up to you, if you tell him or not. The rest isn't anyone's business. He's not the sort to make a scene over such a thing, anyhow. Now get into your pajamas and get some rest before you keel over.”

Sam nodded, relief plain as the new scars on he...his face. Roche shrugged and followed Anna out the door. 

“I'll go make some soup, if you're going to help Lissette?” He offered. He needed something simple to do while he let his thoughts settle; something that made sense. He felt somehow raw at accidentally discovering the young mans secret. Soup was by far the better answer there, a recipe to follow every time.

“If you wish.” She turned to catch up to Lissette.

It might have been the remnants of fever or his overall exhaustion, but Roche found himself waxing philosophical over the chopped vegetables and simmering broth. Life was like the soup; all kinds of different ingredients that seemed like they wouldn't go together were needed to make it. People were made up of different ingredients, too. Thoughts, feelings, experiences, abilities. What happened when you ended up with combinations of ingredients that didn't work together. Or when ingredients weren't at all what you'd expect. Take Regis, for example, a vampire. One who had worked tirelessly to ease the suffering and treat the sick these past weeks. Or Geralt himself, a monster slayer with a conscience and enough of a tender heart to have developed the habit of bringing home strays. _Is that what I am? A stray he's collected?_ A piece of onion had fallen to the floor. Roche picked it up, considered tossing it in the compost bucket, then reconsidered, rinsed it off and threw it in the soup.

It left him wondering how he fit into the grander scheme of things.

He shook his head, wondering just how fever fried his brain was, and went back to work.


	17. Coming Clean

The influenza passed through Toussaint like the wind and left fresh graves and black wreaths on doors in its wake. But, as with all things, it did pass and life began to get back to its normal pace.

Invitations for a Solstice party arrived with due fanfare one sultry evening after they had finished supper.

"Ah, I see Orianna's hosting another of her lavish affairs." Regis arched a brow at the gilt writing. 

"We're not going, are we?" Geralt looked as if he were mentally tallying up excuses.

"Well, I don't see why not. It might be better to keep up appearances, so to speak. And you might consider that many of the more influential people of Beauclair will be in attendance. It could do you some good to network; find some sponsors or at the very least, ensure you have some support here, in case Her Grace decides to cause you any more trouble."

"I'll have to get dressed up, won't I?" Geralt groaned. 

"We all will. This invitation is for your students as well. No doubt there are some who will offer to lure them away with more lucrative positions. And inside information will be wanted."

"Of course." Geralt sounded glum.

"I don't understand. Why is this a problem?" Roche asked. He'd hated court functions, too, but he'd understood why they were important and gone on the occasions he'd been required to. At least the food was usually good.

"Is this Orianna woman someone to steer clear of?" Anna wanted to know.

"Yes." Both Regis and Geralt had answered together.

"She's like me; a vampire. Though she still lives incognito to the population here and I would appreciate it if you kept it that way." 

Roche and Anna both nodded, understanding that Regis had just handed them some pretty heavy ammunition and told them they were being entrusted to hold on to it.

"The greater concern is that she's rich." Geralt shrugged.

"She has clout here, I take it?" Roche saw how that could affect Geralt's position.

"Yes." Both answered again.

"Which brings me to a point."Geralt looked at Roche. "You should try and make an good impression. Get cleaned up. That sort of thing."

"Right, because I've never been to court before. I pick my nose, fart in public, and eat with my hands." Roche rolled his eyes.

"Be serious." Regis implored. " If the students cast a poor impression..."

"The school gets shut down." Roche finished.

"Geralt gets evicted and potentially re-incarcerated. Or executed, depending on her mood, though I don't predict her going that far." Regis corrected.

"Oh. No pressure, then." Anna shook her head.

"Well?" Roche looked to Regis, gestured at his face and hair. "Do you think you can do anything with this?"

"Ready to stop looking as though you haven't seen a mirror in the last five years?"

"Very funny."

"Indeed, come by later and we'll find out. I enjoy a challenge."

Later, Roche stood in the doorway and felt nervous.

"Have a seat." Regis motioned him to the chair and fastened a sheet about his shoulders. Picking up a comb. he began a cursory examination of what he was going to be working with. "How would you like this done?"

"I....I'm not sure. It's too hot to keep it this long and not appropriate for hobnobbing with the nobles. I don't suppose you have any recommendations?"

Regis took his chin in one hand and turned his face from one angle to another, studying him. Roche felt his face heat under the close scrutiny.

"Take off the beard; you have a strong enough chin without it and it isn't quite full enough to bother shaping into anything shorter. The hair needs cutting; the only question is whether you prefer I take it all the way back to a military cut or try something else."

"No..." Roche was shaking his head before the words were out of his mouth. "Nothing military, it wouldn't be right. Not anymore. And...maybe keep enough length to cover the ears?"

"Ah. That's right; there are no longer any living elves in Toussaint." Regis frowned. "You fear retaliation due to your bloodlines?"

"I'd rather avoid it, yes."

"Are you ashamed of your elven heritage?" Regis tipped his head back and began to comb through the overgrown tangle of hair, tugging the knots out with practiced technique.

"I don't feel anything about it, really. I never knew my father; if he was a good man or not. So I have nothing to relate 'being elven' to. What I do know is that others are quick to judge and quicker to act on those judgments. I prefer deciding, as much as I can, who knows and when; I'd rather my life not end on a mobs bonfire."

"I understand all too well. I hide things about myself for similar reason; although a bonfire would do me no real harm. My teeth, in particular, net a negative reaction. And of course, there's the shadow problem; which you so noted."

Regis wet the comb and kept working until all of Roche's hair was slicked back away from his face. 

He then brushed out what passed for a beard before he trimmed away all the excess facial hair. Roche had a few moments to doubt the decision as the vampire worked up the shaving lather. When it was ready, Regis applied it in swirling sure motions. Then the razor was in his hand and it was too late for Roche to change his mind.

The smooth ease with which the razor was drawn over his face sent little frissons of chill across him. Roche relaxed and settled back into the chair. It was odd but pleasant. Comfortable. Comforting. He never would have guessed that a vampire would be so good at putting people at ease.

"Why did you choose to let this all grow out so haphazardly, if I may ask?" Regis turned his head to get at a spot along his jaw. 

"At first, I had no time. Then..." Vernon Roche scowled at the memories of that cave, the stench, the dirt. The death. His fingers tightened on the arms of the chair.

"Then...?" Regis prompted.

"Then...I was unwilling to do anything that might make me look as though I associated with Nilfgaard. They prefer a clean shaven look; I deliberately avoided it. After that, I couldn't decide....well, no. By then, I no longer cared."

"A classic symptom of malaise." Regis added. "I think its an encouraging sign you've chosen to do this."

"We have an invitation to some sort of high class affair. Anna called me a vagabond, Geralt said I looked like I was training to become a crazy old hermit. Ves told me I looked like ass. So, the consensus was that I was overdue."

"Interesting." 

"Why so?"

"You've made more than one derogatory and, dare I say, ignorant comment, when it comes to the functions and motivations of the female gender. Yet, when you sought advice, two of the three people you asked are women."

"Yes...well. I trust Ves. I didn't ask Anna; she volunteered her opinion to piss me off."

"Ah. I stand corrected." Regis' tone was arch. 

It might have been his imagination, but Roche thought that next razor scrape was more forceful than necessary. He swallowed. 

"You disagree?"

"With their assessment? No. In fact, when you arrived here and I got my first look at you, I suggested to Geralt that you might do with a delousing. I was relieved to hear it would not be necessary."

Roche scowled harder and started to protest before Regis cut him off and continued.

"With you, yes. I have never, in all my years of studying medicine, which you now know to be a great deal longer than several human lifespans, found anything to suggest that the popular notions about women and their supposed biological instabilities have any basis in reality. Women are no more well or ill suited to any particular task or training than men. They have all the same propensities for good or evil, for intelligence or dullardry, for wisdom or foolishness. They are in short, as mortal as anyone. Unless that woman is also a vampire, of course." He frowned over that last. "Well, you'll be meeting Orianna soon enough. I'll leave you to form your own opinion on that count."

"I suppose I didn't spend much time around them. Women, I mean. Not vampires. Or vampires." Roche stumbled to admit. The admonishment should have angered him, but Regis still had that calm soothing tone. And the vampire's touch against his face was so gentle, commanding in way that couldn't help but make Roche, who had spent his entire life obeying ruling personalities, feel reassured. So instead of arguing, he had eased into a more meditative mood. "I hope I've gotten a little better about it."

"Ah, yes. The military's always been something of a boys club." 

"That still hasn't changed, no. And, I owe you an apology. I am sorry I reacted to learning you were a vampire as badly as I did. You never showed me anything but friendship. And I ought to have trusted that, or at the very least, trusted Geralt."

"You are forgiven. It is not the worst reaction I've ever gotten. You did not dismember me or set me on fire. Even Geralt had a moment or two when he first learned. Ah, almost done. I daresay neither our hostess nor our ladies will have any complaints as to your appearance when I've finished."

"I don't actually care if they do." He lied. "I just don't want to get Geralt in any trouble."

"Of course." The shave finished, Regis used a cool wet cloth to wipe away the last specks of lather. He then selected a pair of tweezers and got to work on Roche's brows.

"That isn't necessary." 

"On the contrary, it is." The vampire didn't so much as hesitate. "I can't force you to look after your health, but when you are in my chair, you will not leave it until you are done."

"Yes, sir." Roche's response to that tone was ingrained. He shrank down in the chair a fraction, subdued. 

"This won't take long but it will make a difference."

The plucking pinched enough to make his eyes sting but he thought better of complaining. It didn't take long; the next thing he knew, a tiny pair of scissors was being used to trim the longer brow hairs and that was it. Regis sopped a small soft cloth in a fragrant mixture of witch hazel and sandalwood then wiped his whole face down with it.

"It will help with the irritation."

Then he got started on Roche's hair. 

"You're quite lucky. Most men your age are concerned about disguising their thinning hair. I see I'll have no such problems from you." Regis continued to talk as he cut, combing out sections, working the strands out between his fingers, and scissoring off the rejected length with surprising speed . 

Roche sat while hair fell away. It felt like shedding bad memories. Or the first day of getting up out of a sickbed lain in for too long. Strange, almost forgotten, but like a step in the right direction.

Finally, Regis worked some sort of balm between his palms and then through Roche's hair. It had a pleasant herbal aroma.

"To encourage the natural tendency toward curl." He explained. Then the towel was pulled off his shoulders and a large powder brush swept across his neck to dislodge any clinging bits of loose hair.

"Done." The vampire handed him a mirror.

He noted when he held it up that he could not see the barber surgeon standing behind him. As for himself...He almost failed to recognize his own face.

"How did you...?" Roche trailed off. "I look a good five years younger...." 

Ten years even. Though that might be pushing it some. Brown hair with a very slight curl hung in layers down almost to the nape of his neck. He was going silver at the temples, but somehow the cut made that look good. The angle of his cheekbones looked sharper, his jawline firmer. If it weren't for the shadows still hanging beneath his eyes...

"A proper haircut can work wonders. Sleeping through the night would still serve you better."

"Point taken. I seem to have suffered more for refusing advice, its not an easy thing to admit."

"Then, as soon as you are returned from these festivities on the morrow, I shall expect you?"

Roche pressed his mouth into a thin line and then nodded. 

"And perhaps you might go so far as to consider having some honest conversations with those you've slighted. Difficult, no doubt, but the only chance at healing damaged relationships."

"I'll give it a shot. What the hell have I got to lose anymore, anyway?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some fics are easy to write and just sort of fall together. Others you have to fight for every freaking chapter. And that's pretty much where I' m at with this one. The serious issues I'm trying to include are coming out clumsy and I intend to keep working on that. I'm also still wrestling with some plot points that are stubbornly refusing to cooperate. So..thanks for being patient. I always finish what I start, even if it takes longer than anyone anticipated. Happy holidays and I hope 2020 turns into a great year for fics, writers and fans alike!


	18. Backhanded Compliments

Roche looked over the pools, gardens, arches, and balconies with an appreciative eye. Orianna's estate was beautiful. It wasn't at all like Temeria's block stonework or mimicked elven archways which looked heavy by comparison. Whoever had designed the place had clearly had an eye for blending interior and exterior spaces; open balconies and private courtyard gardens made up the heart of the domicile. 

Orianna herself had not been what he'd been expecting either. She gave every appearance of being a wealthy philanthropist, possibly widowed young, just entering her middle years. She greeted her guests dressed in black lace edged with floral embroidery, layered over plum satin and bedecked in enough jewels to look much a Duchess herself. She was lovely but there was a harder edge behind her eyes and she did not smile with more than the corners of her mouth.

She struck Roche as someone who had played out lifetimes at court and for whom intrigue, murder, and backstabbing where simply events of the day and no more remarkable than the weather. 

Geralt greeted her with an almost snide tone, on the verge of mocking but not enough to call him on it. Well, the witcher wore his dislike of people a lot more comfortably than he did his saffron colored doublet.

The second carriage drew up and began unloading and the introductions continued. Roche grabbed a drink and edged off to one side, following Geralt's lead. Ves appeared at Geralt's other side. Regis had already disappeared into the crowd, chatting, shaking hands, exchanging greetings. 

“Can you and Anna keep an eye out tonight?” Geralt stage whispered.

“Anything or anyone specific in your mind?”

“No. Just a hunch. I hope I'm wrong.”

“Does Orianna not honor her guest rights?”

“She will; to the letter.” Geralt shook his head. “But she may not be the only one we need to worry about.”

Roche felt a cold chill run down his spine. He gave the room another look. Couples and groups talking, drinking, laughing. He tried to count shadows, but in the warm glow of candlelight amid swirling skirt fabrics, it did no good.

“Are you sure we should be here unarmed?” Ves scowled.

“No help for that, you know. If something does happen tonight, leave it to me and Regis, Just get the students out of here.”

“So we're glorified babysitters, tonight?”

“Roche.”

“Fine.” He'd had more boring assignments over the years. He went back to sight seeing, with an eye for escape routes.

It was then that Anna walked over. And then that all coherent thought dropped right out of his head. He stared. He was by no means the only one doing so.

Her gown was made of some light fabric, suited to the humid summer night, that gave the impression of water or starlight or...It clung and shifted as she walked, woven with silver threads that caught the light. Beadwork drew the eye to the neckline, which was low enough to cradle the swell of her breasts without being vulgar. Her hair was pulled loosely back and woven into some fancy updone knot of some kind. A few tendrils had been left to frame her face and tease about her neck. He wanted to tangle his fingers in it, drag her head back and lick from her shoulder to her ear, feeling her pulse under his tongue the whole way up, to bury his face between those breasts. Anna looked like an evening star fallen to earth, a water goddess come to life, a...

An sharp elbow to the ribs brought him back to the present moment.

“Pick your tongue up off the floor before somebody steps on it.” Geralt all but rolled his eyes.

“Just because you quit looking like ass doesn't mean you get to act like one.” Ves shook her head. “You're an embarrassment.”

“Thanks,Ves.” It was only half sarcastic. 

He shook himself out of it and nodded at his former second, who looked none too shabby herself, in a dark blue gown that made her eyes stand out. Ves's jewelry was understated. Odd, but he hadn't realized her ears were even pierced. And the only jewelry he'd ever seen on her was that Temerian lily pendant she always wore on it's faded leather cord. It had been replaced by a pale blue aquamarine stone on a silver chain for the evening. Glancing around, he realized Ves was turning quite a few heads herself. In fact, they all were; Sam was chatting with a group of knights, Duval shaking hands with his uncle, the Royal Huntsman, Regis introducing Lissette, who was swathed in a deep magenta pink that few other women could have pulled off, to someone. Between Regis' knowledge of these affairs and Lissette's understanding of the latest fashions, everyone had been outfitted with suitable clothing. Well, maybe their school would earn some points for style, if nothing else.

Anna glided up to them, her dancers poise and grace only adding to her beauty. Up close, her eyes were made up with something dark and smoky, her lips a dark berry shade. She gave him a very slow head to toe once over, one eyebrow raising. He was braced for some sarcastic observation but by the time she met his eyes, he could see a look in hers that stopped him.

“You look good for yourself.” She murmured.

“Likewise.” He replied and stared back at her, not entirely sure what that meant. If it was a backhanded compliment, well, she'd said it first.

The corner of her mouth lifted in a small private smile that made his mouth go dry.

He reflexively took a swallow of his drink.

Geralt filled her in on his hunch.

“Keepin' this lot out of trouble for one evening shouldn't be too hard.”

“Well, I had better go mingle before Regis makes me.”

“You love it when he makes you.” Ves teased. “Don't worry. We won't tell.”

The witcher disappeared into the crowd after throwing one of his patented disagreeable looks at her.

By some unspoken mutual agreement, or possible avoidance, Roche and Anna split up. She vanished down a hall in a hypnotic swirl of silver and gold. No sooner had she left than another woman detached herself from the crowd and approached him.

“You are with the witcher's students, are you not?” She held up a hand for him to kiss.

“I assist Geralt in that endeavor, true.” Roche leaned over her fingers, court manners back in full swing.

“Ask me to dance?” She leaned in close. 

Roche frowned. She wanted something. That much was clear. Heaving a mental sigh, he offered her his arm and they headed out to the floor amongst all the other dancers. Thanks to Anna's efforts, he could at least appear to know what he was doing.

“Forgive my boldness.” She smiled up at him from within the confines of his arms. “I am Lady Aleksandra Deschamps. My late husband was Eugene Deschamps.” 

At Roche's blank look, she elaborated. “I'm a titled landowner here in Toussaint, though my maiden name was Kamien. I was born in Vizima. After I married, I moved here, of course. You are from Vizima, as well, aren't you? I can tell.”

“I am.”

“You were one of King Foltest's advisors. I recall seeing you in his retinue some years ago.” 

_Shit_. Roche did a double take. Nothing about her stood out or jogged his memory. Not that she would have, but he had prided himself on his observational skills. He could usually remember a face. Questions began piling up; who was she, how did she know, did it even matter?

“Not an advisor. Just a military man occasionally summoned to report to his highness.” He demurred. “That was some time ago. I work with Geralt now.”

“To trade down from a king to a witcher.” She tsked. “They're little more than vagabonds. And ever so strange. No, a man of your talents needn't remain in the shadows.”

“I have an offer for you.” She looked him over in a way that made him feel uncomfortable without quite knowing why.

“I'm not for hire.”

“Oh, come now. I find myself in need of a bodyguard here. Someone strong and clever, who looks good on my arm. You would be well compensated. My late husband, Melitele rest his soul, had enemies. Now they've set their sights on me. Surely, I would be a more favorable option than that mutant?” She pressed closer, full painted lips pursed in a sensual pout. “All I ask is that you consider my proposal.”

It was possible he had forgotten how brazen the machinations of courts could be. Had he ducked his head, he could have kissed her without even trying. That was what had made him uncomfortable about her attentions. The way she had looked at him presupposed his grateful and enthusiastic agreement. She expected it. Too bad he wasn't the agreeable type. He chuckled to himself.

“You are very forward about this, aren't you?” 

“One of the benefits of marrying for money and having been widowed is that I no longer have to be apologetic about any of it. I'm a realist, Vernon Roche.”

_Oh, I'll just bet._ It would be laughable if it wasn't quite so serious. He had no idea what kind of influence this woman might have or what kind of trouble she could make for him, for Geralt. And the way she was pressing against him was meant to entice him further. The irony of it was that at a point not too long ago, he probably would have taken her up on her offer. If she had found him in that dive instead of Ves with an offer for some future employment who knew where he would have ended up.

It occurred to him that he hadn't ever thanked Geralt for thinking to invite him. 

As far as working for and or sleeping with Aleksa, or whatever her name was...she was just whoring herself in another way. Trying to use her charm and sexuality to force a decision or as partial payment for the bodyguarding services she thought he was going to be rendering. She was desperate. Her whole approach, the bit about Vizima, about him. She believed he was desperate, too, trapped in service to a witcher with no way out. 

So...until he knew more about what influence she did have, he needed to play cautiously.

“Your Ladyship is most generous. However, I'm afraid I have to decline.”

She tensed in his arms, drawing away and ending the dance. “You may come to regret that.”

“Thank you for the dance.” He bowed and turned to hide in the crowd, seeking Geralt or better yet, Lissette, who might be able to tell him just how much trouble he could expect in rejecting her. Through no fault of his own. 

“Sir, a moment?” 

Roche turned and came face to face with a florid man already well into his cups. 

“I saw you come in with that witcher. Be warned, that man is a snake. A viper! Why, he conned me out of...” 

“Thanks for the warning.” Roche growled and kept walking. His patience wasn't going to hold if he had to get trapped in conversation with every idiot here. 

He spotted Lissette, dancing with Sam, of all people. 

“Sorry to interrupt. I need to know about an Aleksandra Deschamps.?”

“Lady Aleksandra?” Lissette and Sam broke apart, turning to flank him as they headed for the refreshments.

“Yes.”

“Her passed several months ago. Inherited land and had a few business investments. I seem to remember there was something odd about his death, now that you mention it. He was considerably older. Some seem to think she might have been after his wealth, but as he had no living heirs, she was the only one who inherited. She's in charge of all his assets now, of course. Why?”

“My father had a few dealings with her. Didn't come away from it happy, that's for sure.” Sam added, shrugging.”Though I don't know the details.”

“She posed an offer to me tonight. She told me I'd regret it if I turned her down. Which I did.”

“Oh, what offer, pray tell?”

“Something I'm not interested in.” Roche scowled.

Both students looked askance at him.

“Can you counteroffer her anything?” Sam asked.

“Not likely.”

“I'm not sure what her influence is, come to think of it.” Lissette frowned. “It might not come to anything, and we can't study or run that school if we're constantly jumping at what others might do. Maybe give Geralt a heads up and then wait and see what she does?”

Roche noticed her makeup looked smeared, as if she had been crying. 

“You're right. We can't operate on the anticipated displeasure of a bunch of spoiled nobles. I told her no, politely. I can't have been the first to say that to her, can I?”

Lissette sniffled and shook her head. Sam shrugged.

“Are you alright?”

“I'm fine.” Lissette heaved a sigh that said she was anything but and finished her drink. “I'm going to go upstairs for a bit. Our hostess has the most lovely gallery of paintings and I wanted to spend some time admiring them.”

“What was that all about?” Roche turned to Sam as she swept out of the room. 

“Duval.” Sam jerked his chin towards some of the more private alcoves. A few of which were behind closed curtains now to hide the occupants from view. 

“Are you saying that we've been here less that an hour and in that time, I've been propositioned, Lissette's in tears, and Duval's gotten laid? Some party this is turning out to be.”

“Getting...but yes. Sebastien's sister, no less. Apparently, trying to work out their mutual grief over his death through her vagina.”

Roche choked on his drink. 

“What?”Sam asked at Roche's look. “I can say vagina. I have one, even if I didn't sign up for the confounded thing and would prefer otherwise.”

“Right. So, what, Lissette walked in on them?”

“Didn't need to. She was talking to someone and when she got back, the girl was stuck to Duval's face. There was a brief scene of confrontation before both parties opted for privacy, albeit for different purposes. It's better that she found out this way.”

“Found out?” Roche had never heard Sam speak so freely before. He sounded well versed in these sorts of affairs, both the party and the other.

Sam sighed.

“Not to speak ill of the dead, but Sebastien did have a habit of bragging. About his conquests, among other things. He and Duval turned it into a game, a competition. Duval is still playing, I think. Lissette was the only one who didn't know. Pol and I weren't sure how or if we should tell her.”

“Ah. That would be awkward. I have to say, Lissette surprised me with her decision to stay. This may change her mind.”

“I don't think you need to fear that. Lissette's very single minded when she wants something.”

“But she joined because of Duval, didn't she?”

“Initially, perhaps. Now, she wants something else.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Lissette and I have a great deal in common. We both come from wealthy, traditional families. Product of distant but well-meaning parents. We were both treated as girls are, subject to certain expectations. I chafed in that role, unable to convince them of why. Lissette flourished, or so she thought. I chose to leave so I could be who I am. Lissette left to be who she thought she was and found more.”

“High expectations can be damning, sometimes.” Roche had seen that before.

“Not high. Low. So low there may as well be none. Girls are expected to be above all things pretty. Being a girl who isn't pretty is the most unforgivable sin. After that, obedient. No thoughts or opinions of your own. Your only goal is to attract a husband and to do this you must in all ways accommodate his moods, wants, needs. Then you must produce an heir, hand it off to a nanny, and get working on the next one. That's it. A woman's whole life is only what she can be to a man. Being a man, I had no interest in any of that. Lissette thought she did. She was expected to marry a knight. Her mother suggested that she learn a mans interests, to be more sympathetic to them. She came here and for the first time, someone expected her to learn to do things for herself. Now, she knows better what she's capable of. And she wants a future of her own devising.”

“I suppose you have a unique perspective, having been on both sides of the issue. Or, uh, perceived to be.” Roche amended.

He and Sam had taken their drinks and retreated to an out of the way corner. 

“True. In any case, she wants to be a surgeon now and Duval's inconstancy isn't going to get in her way. She'll grieve and move on.” Sam took a moment to nibble an olive out of his drink.

“Speaking of grief....you and Anna seem to be...” 

“What?” Roche's tone went defensive. He had no idea how many drinks Sam had already downed but they had just had three in fairly short order. And he had more weight and twenty years or so on the kid. If Sam wasn't drunk now, he soon would be. “How in all hell did grief lead you to make any comparison involving me and Anna?” 

“Sorry, I've overstepped. It's not my business.” Sam shrugged.

“No. By all means, lets hear it now.” 

“Ah. Well...grief...because she's recently widowed, as well. Well past the one year mark, but my impression is that they actually loved each other quite deeply. So...the, ahem, backlash...you seem to be getting from her, may stem from that.”

“She still misses him?” His stomach tightened into a cold hard knot.

“If I had to guess, I'd say she's scared. She thought she would grieve longer, or harder, or something. And then she finds herself attracted to you...and she thinks it's too soon. So she runs from it. And so do you.”

“I'm hardly running.”

“Hm. Pushing each other away, then. You both have your reasons, I'm sure. But, if you're serious about Anna, then patience or nothing. If you're not, then find someone else.” Sam made a loose gesture with a now oliveless toothpick at the room.

“Right. Thanks for the talk.” Bemused, Roche left the intoxicated yet weirdly sober young man and headed out into the hall. 

He spent the next hours wandering the gardens, making small talk with all sorts of people. He answered a lot questions about the school and his few experiences fighting monsters. Several people asked after contracts but it all sounded like make work they ought to handle on their own.

Late arrivals were announced. Food and drinks passed the time. The art gallery was impressive. He watched an artist paint portraits of the guests in rapid, lush brushwork. A sculptor gave an impromptu lecture on the various materials of his trade while working clay into a rather risque nude figure. A woman who made dresses for the Duchess's court raffled off one of her latest designs, all proceeds going to Orianna's orphanage. 

At midnight, Orianna gave a brief speech thanking everyone for attending while servants handed out small round lanterns for the guests to light and send adrift on the warm night air.

Eventually, he found Geralt. While they were engrossed in theorizing who might contribute financial aid to their school versus who might be most likely to cause problems for them, loud voices interrupted from the other side of the courtyard.

“What're you doing here?” The first voice was Anna's, her accent unmistakable.

“I have an invitation to do business here. Not that you would understand. I pity whoever you're freeloading off of this time. He'll realize how useless you are in due time. Now, stand aside before you ruin my evening entirely.”

Roche caught sight of a tall thin man with receding blond hair going silver and a weak mustache, in the company of two bodyguards, shoving Anna roughly out of his way. She recoiled from his touch and ran off down one of the side corridors.

“That's no way to treat a lady.” Roche intercepted the man's path.

“That's no lady. That's my former wife, I've a right to treat her however I choose, the harlot.” The man sneered. 

Roche saw Geralt stepping up beside him. In response, the man's bodyguards tensed.

“Now, now.” Regis materialized from another part of the courtyard. “Gentlemen, I am quite sure there is no need for violence.”

“I am not the one offering violence.” The blond looked nervous at the three to three odds.

“So long as he apologizes to Anna for pushing her and calling her a harlot.” Geralt's tone was calm.

“On his knees.” Roche crossed his arms over his chest and refused to budge.

_So this string bean of a coward was Anna's ex husband._ He hadn't missed that remark. There was something oily about the man, unpleasantness just under the veneer of civility. A quick glance showed Roche that he was wearing a wedding band. The one from his marriage to Anna? That seemed unlikely unless he had been so controlling as to refuse to acknowledge their divorce. Or, he was currently remarried to another. _Poor woman._

“I don't believe we've met, sirs. Allow me to introduce myself.” The blond drew himself up and smiled a false smile Roche supposed was meant to be charming. “I am Ambrose Dvorak, merchant and explorer extraordinaire. And you are?” 

“Geralt of Rivia. Witcher.” Geralt's bored tone would have served a warning and an insult to anyone clever enough to pick up on it. “ This is Vernon Roche. Master-at-arms at Corvo Bianco.”

Roche raised an eyebrow at the title and stared at one of the guards, daring him to move. Dvorak was taller than he was and he refused to look up at the man.

“A pleasure to make your acquiantance. You seem to have some familiarity with my estranged spouse. Let me save you some trouble. She's a liar and a whore. You can't trust her at all.”

“Do not insult Anna in my presence again.” Roche bit out between gritted teeth. His fists clenched. He wanted to hit this man. 

“Pity. It seems my warning comes too late. She has her charms, to be sure. They are short lived. You'll regret that dalliance as I did. If she isn't already fucki....”

Roche's fist cracked loudly against the mans jaw, tumbling him to the floor. Both guards lunged and were brought to an abrupt stop as Geralt dropped one with a straight punch and Regis somehow got behind the other and pinned his arms before Roche had even registered that he'd moved at all. Ambrose spluttered in outrage as he picked himself up, pale face flushing a beet red. He held a hand to where Roche had struck him. 

Ambrose threw himself at Roche, swinging wildly. One hit connected, splitting Roche's lip. Roche's next strike boxed Ambrose's ears.

Roche sidestepped next and brought a hand down onto the mans shoulder as he lunged forward, shoving him back to the floor. He kicked him, aiming for the groin, but Ambrose curled over and he caught him in the hip instead. He wanted to beat the shit out of this writhing, whinging fop. Except...

Except there was no challenge in it. The man was weak; not the sort of man who fought his own battles but, as evidenced by the two bodyguards, the sort who hired others to do it for him. He was a merchant, not a warrior. _What the hell could Anna have possibly ever seen in him?_

As soon as he regained his feet, he swung again. Roche punched him, spinning him to sag back against the wall. 

“You'll regret that.” Ambrose wiped a shaking hand across his mouth. It came away bloody.

“I doubt it.” Roche replied, clenching a fist in warning. “But if you insist on making trouble for Anna or anyone else here, I will end it. Now, since you haven't got the sense to apologize for your rude behavior, the least you could do is shrivel up like the cowardly little prick you are so that you and your slow -witted testicles here will be clear of our path. We were just leaving.”

“Another time, gentlemen.” Geralt gave the trio a lethal stare, daring any of them to make a move.

Regis released his grip on the guard he'd stopped and readjusted his jacket cuffs. 

“I'll go and tender our farewells to our dear hostess.” And just like that, the vampire vanished into the crowd once more. Partygoers drifted back to their diversions as the promise of a violent spectacle diffused.

Once they were outside and waiting for a carriage, Roche rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms out, hearing a satisfying pop from one shoulder as the joint cracked. He blew out the tension in a long sigh.

“I thought Anna's husband was dead?” Geralt frowned back towards the door. “Who the fuck was that guy?”

“Second husband's dead. That was her first one. What an asshole.”

“How is she? Did you check?”

“No need.” Regis came down the steps towards them, just as the carriage pulled up. “She's already left. So have the rest.” 

“Was Orianna angry about the fight?” Geralt didn't sound as though he cared.

“I doubt it. Vampires are not shy about blood sport and I don't expect she's an exception. Though I could not find her.”

“You couldn't?” That raised the witchers eyebrows. His glance strayed in the direction of the orphanage. “Interesting. I wonder where she fucked off to?”

“I should suppose it to be none of our business at present?” Regis looked to Geralt for confirmation.

“Fine. But you know one of these days I'll have to do something”

“Of course. Now, let us return to the manor. I find I have had quite enough of socializing for this evening. And someone ought to help you out of those clothes.” Regis looked at Geralt as though he were about to devour him. The smouldering heat in the vampires tone made Roche blush to overhear it. Geralt only smirked as the next driver pulled up.

“You two go on without me.” Roche waved them towards the carriage. “I'll make my own way back.”

“Roche...you're not going to cause any trouble, are you?” Geralt gave him a knowing look.

“Me? Not a chance. That scrawny pimple is hardly worth it. I just feel like stretching my legs, is all.”

Geralt shrugged. He boarded the carriage behind Regis. 

Roche picked a direction at random and started walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. Sorry this is taking me so long. Writers block is back and kicking my butt. Eventually I'll manage to get around to where ever the hell this plot is going. It's just going to be awhile...Thanks for being patient and for reading. : )


	19. Sojourn

Roche found himself wandering the docks. The splash of waves, the creak of ships moorings, the cat call and answers of the sailors and prostitutes. It all had a familiar pattern to it. It was the same everywhere. It made him a bit homesick. He found a spot with a decent overlook of the river, near a tavern rife with the greasy clinging odor of fried fish and a drunk man passed out and snoring on the doorstep. Leaning on the railing he lit his pipe and watched the ripples of moonlight sparking off the current as it flowed by while he smoked. 

What was happening to him here? Was monster hunting and teaching really what he wanted for the rest of his life? It paid well enough for the time being. Geralt was generous when he could afford to be. And there was enough work in Toussaint that he could afford to be. But unlike Roche, Geralt didn't age. At least, not as humans experienced it. Roche might have another five or ten years before his reflexes started to slow. Before his joints ached too badly to move well. Hell, it was already starting. He couldn't do this forever. 

Maybe it wouldn't come to that so soon. After all, he'd never expected to live this long as it was.

“Fine evening.” A woman appeared to lean on the railing next to him. 

“It is.” He replied. 

“I could make it even better if you fancy a frolic.”

Roche glanced at her. He ought to accept the offer. He hadn't gotten laid in a very long time, longer than he cared to think about. And his temper was up after that confrontation with the fop. His night was free and he had the money. Although, his libido hadn't been bothering him so much of late. A side effect of sleepless nights and heavy drinking.

She was meant to be pretty in the dim fire light of candles and torches and lanterns. Her makeup was heavy and already smeared by her previous clients. Cheap rose perfume didn't cover or compliment the unwashed stink of her. She was underfed and he could see where her foundation hadn't disguised the bruising on one cheek. She couldn't have been more than twenty. He was old enough to be her father.

She reached out to place a hand on his chest and he stepped back without even thinking about it.

“Sorry. Not interested.” 

“You sure? Handsome man like you shouldn't spend the night alone.” Her lip quivered and dark eyes darted toward an alleyway. Nervous. “I could give you a discount?”

Roche shifted against the railing and caught sight of a dark shadow. Her pimp keeping an eye on her? He looked at the bruising on her cheek again. He pulled out his purse, counted out a handful of coins, and pressed them into her eager palm. 

“What would you like? Below job?” She bit her lip and leaned into him. “I've a room, not far, or the alley? Or right here, if you don't mind being seen.”

“Nothing for me. Go on inside and get yourself something to eat. ” He put his coin purse away, knocked out his pipe against the railing, and walked away.

It took several moments for her awful perfume to clear his nose. He rounded a corner and ran smack into three people who had just stepped off a carriage and were heading dockside.

“You!” 

“Well, if it isn't Anna's ex-fop. Come back for more of a beating?” Roche sneered, recognizing the tall thin man from the party.

“Seize him!” 

The two guards grabbed Roche and divested him of his sword before he could formulate a plan for how best to deal with them. Then he was being held securely while the fop paced and gloated.

He stopped in front of Roche. Then punched him, fist connecting with his nose. Roche's head snapped back, he pretended to sag against the guard's arms, though the hit hadn't been enough to stagger him quite that badly. He kicked out, catching the fop in the knee and hearing the satisfactory crack of the joint forced back in the wrong direction. Ambrose yelped and collapsed, face dough pale in the torchlight. The guards loosened their hold in conflict over wether or not to help him up and Roche rolled away and spun to square off against them.

Bodyguard number one swung a heavy cudgel overhand which Roche ducked, pivoting as he gripped the mans arm and swung him around to crash into the other. He hoped it would disorient them enough for him gain a better advantage. It didn't. Ambrose was hobbling to his feet, seething fury, fist cocked back once more. Roche caught the glint of metal; brass knuckles.

His cheek was laid open under that blow. Blood in his mouth. The scuff of leather soles on crumbling brick. Heavy breathing. 

Cries and shouts of alarm from an awakened homeowner under whose window this fight was taking place. 

A grunt when he managed to disarm the guard of his cudgel and used it to break the other guards arm. 

The whuff of displaced air when he drove the butt end of the pike he'd twisted out of the other's weakened grip into the fops stomach. 

The heavy reek of body odor as one attempted to pin Roche in a headlock with one arm while raining blows down on his flank with the other. 

Guard one wallowing in the gutter after Roche had punched him in the gut and then hammer fisted the back of his head when he'd doubled over. The pike lay in the street where it had fallen after the disarm. Roche's sword was somewhere behind him. He needed to get to it...

The fop was calling for help now. The city guards came running. 

Roche felt a stave slam across his back, pain searing white hot._ Kidneys. Son of a bitch... _He fell to his hands and knees, gasping.

Someone kicked him in the head and sent his consciousness flying.


	20. Sort Out

He woke to a sliver of pale light cast through a high narrow window. To a thin straw pallet on a hard metal bunk. To a headache and sore ribs. To a jail cell. To Geralt and Anna glaring at him, unamused, from the other side of the bars. The jailor came along with the keys and opened his door.

“Posted your bail. You're welcome.” Geralt said.

“Thanks.” Roche limped out of the cell and accepted his belongings from Anna. Her gaze lingered on his split lip, bruised face, and blood spattered tunic.

“You going to tell me what the fuck you were thinking?” Geralt asked.

“I was thinking that three against one odds suck and I wanted to get out of there.”

“I warned you, Roche. I warned you not to go after him. He's pressing charges against you. Was your ego really worth that?”

“Against me?! I was minding my own fucking business! I ran into him by accident. He started that fight. I should press charges against him!”

“I was afraid of that.” Anna sighed. “It's his way. Gets what he wants and blames someone else. His hands are always clean.”

“That so?” Geralt frowned. “I don't suppose you have any witnesses.”

Roche thought for a moment of the young whore, but dismissed it just as quickly. Even if she had seen anything, which he doubted, as it had been dark and he'd been a good distance away from her by that point. Whores were considered unreliable from a court stand point anyhow.

“No. Sorry.”

The journey back to the estate was tense if quiet. As soon as they arrived, Roche hopped down and headed to his cabin. He wanted to get cleaned up. And get some breakfast. With coffee. Really strong coffee. And then to find out just how much trouble he'd brought down and how to fix it. 

Anna came in after him without asking. She set about getting water and some clean cloth to see to his injuries. Stepping close, she started wiping away the rust dry blood from his hairline.

“He hit you. Didn't he?” Roche needed to know. He held still, breathing in the warm faint scent of honeysuckle.

“No.” She glanced up at him, oddly shy, and shook her head, letting her hair fall over her face and hiding her expression from him.“That is the one thing he never did. Doesn't believe in hitting women, you see. Thinks we're too weak to bother.”

“How did you ever end up with that piece of shit?” He didn't want to know. But he did. 

“I was young and stupid. And very much in love at the time.” She looked wistful. 

“You loved him?”

“He was different when we first met. Charming. He courted me proper. Asked me da's permission and all that. The day we got married, I thought I'd never been so happy. Of course it didn't last.”

“What happened?” He was torturing himself with this, probably, but he asked anyway. 

Partly so he could better understand the kind of man he was dealing with, and partly to keep Anna talking. Talking and touching him. She currently had his chin in her hand while she scrubbed carefully at a cut along his brow. Her fingers were strong and her touch sent chills down his spine, loosening tight muscles along his neck and shoulders. Warmth began to spread through him. 

“He dropped the charming act. Turned possessive and jealous. He isolated me. And he traveled so much. He'd be gone; weeks or months at a stretch. I wasn't allowed to get a job or attend any sort of school or change anything in his house. Nothing I did made him happy. And he had other women. A couple of bastards, too. I finally had enough. I waited until he was gone on one of his longer trading runs and then I found a lawyer. I was glad to be rid of him and would have been gladder still to never see the worthless lout again.” Anna finished with the cut over his brow, rinsed the cloth and started in on the one on his cheek.

“I'm sorry you had to.” He winced at the sting of the damp rag over the reopened cut.

She nodded, her eyes raising to meet his. The way she was touching his face...it wasn't to hold him still now. It was just her palm against his jaw, her thumb stroking below his lip. Suddenly it felt as though there was no air in the room. He leaned towards her, gaze dropping to her lips. 

A knock on the door jarred them both out of it. Anna tossed the cloth into the basin and left, wiping her hands on her skirt. 

“Pardon. Was I interrupting something?” Regis stood in the doorway, looking from Anna's retreating form to him. 

Roche swallowed and shook his head. Whatever intimate moment had just blossomed between them, it had stretched and snapped apart when she walked out the door.

“No. Nothing. Please, come in.”

He didn't have a concussion. Everything else was just various degrees of bruised and would heal on it's own, given time. Regis also held him to his promise to let the barber surgeon examine him and they spend the next hour going over every aspect of Roche's life and experiences for the last year at least. Regis agreed that his inability to sleep was the first and possibly most important step to getting his health back and prescribed him a strong valerian tea to drink before bed, declaring him otherwise healthy. 

He tried the tea that night and slept ten hours straight through. If he dreamed at all, he didn't recall it the next day. 

The timing was perfect as there was some residual drama to deal with. And not all of it his.

“Anyone else have any interesting information from our little soire the other night?” Anna asked the room.

“I was approached by a woman who owns a lumber mill up north. She says her work crews have been going missing.” 

“I heard a rumor that someone wants to buy Corvo Bianco and intends to make an offer.”

“I was offered a job in exchange for tampering with Geralt's gear.”

One by one the sordid details of everyone's evening surfaced.

“Not entirely unexpected.” Geralt sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I trust you said no.”

“Of course.” Ves grinned. 

“I got asked about how to join? Why does everyone else want you gone?”

“I was offered a job as well, but I turned her down. I think the fight with Anna's ex was the low point of my night.” Roche didn't bring up the assault charges since Geralt already knew about those.

“Loggers disappearing?” Geralt ignored the rest. “Any hint as to what might be responsible?”

“None, except they've ruled out wolves, bear, and harpies.”

“Might be worth a look.”

“Great. I'll send a response, find out where we're supposed to go.

It seemed impossible, but in those moments, of going over his gear and talking about the upcoming contracts, Roche felt as though his life might be sorting itself out.


	21. Distractions

After some debate, Geralt elected to send Duval and Sam to speak with the lumberjacks and handle that contract. They packed up their gear and left within the hour. 

The rest of the day was a bit of a free for all. Roche spent a couple of hours working his frustration at not having a clear objective at the moment out on the training dummies. Ves and Lissette were tossing targets for each other across the yard while Ves also instructed her on some of the finer points of cussing. Pol was talking to Barnabas Basil. Geralt and Regis were probably down in the alchemy lab but Roche wasn't about to interrupt whatever was really going on down there; they deserved some time together. He didn't know where Anna was and wasn't inclined to ask. 

He felt restless. He didn't want to spend another quiet day reading, it was sunny and hot and there would be enough days with bad weather or injuries to recover from to spend indoors. He decided instead to haul his gear up the short cliff face at the edge of the property and sit in the shade of a massive old growth oak while cleaning and sharpening. 

It was a lovely day to be outdoors. Had Marlene still been alive, she likely would have been making lemonades and sun teas and fresh salads. The sun warmed scent of grass and blooming flowers drifted on the breezes that ruffled the ends of his hair as he worked. The view from this spot was picturesque as well; he could see almost all the way to the other end of the property. Workers milled about in the vineyard. Someone was feeding the chickens and ducks. A hawk or eagle or some such floated and circled around, enjoying the thermals. Down in the yard, Lissette whooped in victory as one of her shots outmarked Ves'. 

And was that....Shit. He shouldn't have looked. But it wasn't the kind of thing he could pretend he hadn't seen. So that's where she'd been this afternoon...

Anna was out on the small balcony that opened out from the upper bedroom. Sunbathing. Nude. 

Well, it explained why she always looked tan; she was. Had she spotted him? No. He risked another peek. Lean muscle, shapely limbs, hair loose. 

He forced himself to refocus on his blade. The whetstone scraped repetitively over steel. He didn't need to watch it to know if he was doing it right. Another glance. He could make out some of her tattoos. The heat he felt wasn't so much to do with the weather anymore. His concentration drifted, weaving up a fantasy of walking over there, out on to that balcony, kissing that sun-warmed skin, hands sliding...

The stone slipped and a razor line of blood welled up from the cut where his thumb had grazed the edge. 

“Fuck! Son of a-!” He stuck the wound into his mouth, grimacing at the cloying copper of blood on his tongue. 

_What the hell am I even doing? Spying on her like some juvenile pervert? I'm not that desperate._ Even though it hadn't been his intention in coming up here. Embarrassed and feeling as though he were trespassing, he packed his things up and headed in to get something to bandage his cut.

Good timing, too. A horse road up, a man with disheveled brown hair, in full leather armor trimmed in red. A man wearing a witcher's medallion in the same wolf head style as Geralt's. Eskel, if Roche recalled right.

Roche went over to greet him and find out what was going on. It would be a welcome distraction, if nothing else. 

“Geralt! You've got company!” He bellowed at the top of his lungs, his best drill sergeant impersonation. Something down in the lab crashed and a few moments later, the door slammed open and Geralt and Regis appeared, in the midst of a friendly argument, tailed by a cloud of noxious smoke. 

“You said add a pinch. I added a pinch!” Geralt dusted what looked like ash off his clothes.

“Yes, well. It seems I have either the timing or the temperature to work out further. In any case, that batch is gone to waste now. We can start over next week when the next shipment of alcohest gets in.”

Eskel watched the two, one eyebrow raised in silent amusement.

“Eskel!” Geralt left off the argument, noticing his guest, and strode over to greet him.

“Wolf.” 

The two men embraced in a back slapping bear hug of the type only long standing friends can give one another. Eskel shook hands with Regis, they apparently knew one another though not terribly well or for as long as Geralt had known either.

Roche avoided staring at the man's scars; there were only two factions of opinions on facial scarring. The first was that it was a damned shame and _'shouldn't the medics have been able to heal that better'_. Pity the persons looks were ruined. The second was one of pride and acceptance. _Look at what I've survived_. Roche suspected Eskel fell into the latter category, but until he knew for sure, it didn't suit to be rude. The battle at Kaer Morhen hadn't been a social call and they hadn't been able to talk much outside of the defenses and planning.

“What brings you this far south?” 

“Didn't know I needed a reason to visit, but if I do, then I figured I'd check out this school you have going.” 

They headed into the cool stuffy shade of the house to get caught up.


	22. In Darkness

“What do you think? Do we go back and say we lost the trail?”

“I didn't lose it.” Duval replied, tone irritated. 

He'd been tracking back the blood splotches and broken foliage for three days now. 

Sam shook his head. 

“You're sure it ends here? We've been all over these ruins and there's no sign of any of the missing woodsmen, loggers, or any monster. You can stare at that stain all you want, it won't make this any clearer.”

“Speak for yourself.” Duval crouched to more closely examine the last blood droplets. “I was right the first time. Direction indicates they were likely moving in that direction.” He rose and pointed at an archway half blocked by fallen rubble.

“But we've been all over that side of the ruins. Nothing. It's like they disappeared into thin air. All I'm suggesting is that perhaps there is a creature which can do just that and we haven't learned about it yet. I think we should head back and get some fresh eyes on this.”

“You can quit brown nosing up to Geralt. I'm almost as good of a tracker as he is. He'd tell you the same. And he trusted this to us. _To us._ Which means he thinks we can do it. We're just missing something, Sammy, and I'm willing to bet you that it's going to be obvious when we figure it out. I, for one, do not intend to go back and announce we quit and gave up just when it got challenging.”

“Alright.” Sam raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. “We'll keep looking. But, for the record, I have a bad feeling about this.”

They circled around again, Duval focused on the grounds, Sam peering into corners and climbing on the debris until the slanted rays of sunlight through the forest told them the sun was setting. 

“What do you say we make camp? There's a level spot on that old balcony. We can start again fresh when the light is better.”

Duval sighed and kicked at small chunk of marble.

“I suppose we don't have much choice. But let's keep the fire low tonight. Maybe whatever did this will come through here at night and we'll get a look at it.”

“I can't say I relish the idea of fighting something unknown in the dark but I haven't got any better ideas at present. We can set some of these stones to make a screen and block some of the light. Maybe we could set out some snares, too?”

“If by we, you mean I, then yes. I can set some snares out tonight. Worst case we eat rabbit tomorrow.” 

The small fire was barely enough to cook over, and the shadows loomed deep over the ruins as the sun disappeared. The heavy undergrowth and tree canopy blocked most of the stars. No moon shone. By midnight, the fire had gone out and the blackness was absolute. 

Almost.

“Pssst. Duval? Did you see that?” Sam squinted in the black, half convinced that the flicker of light had been his imagination.

“I thought I saw a light. Heard something, too.” Duval's voice, barely above a whisper, seemed to carry too loudly in the odd hush that had taken the woods around them. Not so much as a cricket dared to chirp.

“Get the fire up. I think somethings out there.”

The sound of fabric rustling as Duval shoved his sleeping roll away and began patting around in the dark to find his sword. 

Sam had put his pack down for a pillow. Hands shaking, he felt for the ties, reached in to where he knew the flint and striker were, felt for the bundle of dried moss and twigs he'd set out as extra before the flames had died out. The first spark made him flinch. The second landed away and fizzled out. The third landed in the moss but went out. Cursing, he tried again.

The sense of danger rose until he felt he would choke on it. 

“Steady.” Duval sounded more as if he were speaking to himself. “Whatever it is, it's close now. Get that fire up.”

“I'm trying.” Sam's teeth were clenched. 

He stopped. Held his breath. The sound of that last strike...had he heard something else move under cover of that? Or was the noise helping it home in on them?

“Sam! Hurry up!”

“Shh! I think it's following the sound!”

“Bloody hell. Do mean it's been tracking by vibrations or something?”

It made a kind of sense. Wood cutters, all that sawing, felled trees crashing down. There would have been a lot of noise and vibration coming from that. If the creature they were tracking operated on senses like that, it would have had no trouble finding the source of such noises. 

Geralt hadn't taught them anything about creatures that tracked noise.

They still had no idea what they were dealing with. 

“Sshh!”

They both fell silent. 

A twig snapped. Something made a chuffing sound. Then an thud. Fear made their breathing fast and loud, both young men panting in adrenaline spiked readiness in the darkness to no avail;their senses operated heavily on sight.

“Oh, hell. Get the fire going already! Sound or not I can't take this!” Duval exclaimed.

Hands shaking, Sam crouched and struck again. This time, through some fortune or fate, the spark took. The moss began to smoulder, the flame, the the twigs caught. Sam carefully fed it more. It was something, a little bit of hope in the dark. But it still wasn't enough to see by. He groped around inside his pack for the torch. If they could get that lit....

There was a sudden roar, like the force of a hurricane condensed into the small clearing around the ruins. Duval lunged at something. His cry of alarm pitched into a tight shriek and faded away fast just as the light they had both noticed earlier flared to life again. Just as the torch flared up. Sam saw something huge with no shape he could imagine carrying off Duval's slumped and either dead or unconscious form.

Through the gate. Which had sprung to life in the archway. 

Grabbing a lump of charred branch from the ashes of the previous fire, Sam rapidly drew a series of arrows to the gate, a haphazard message for whoever came looking for them. 

Making sure he had both his sword and the torch, he plunged through the gate after them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we all are, finding some ways to cope with the seriously shitty turn of world events. I hope you all stay safe and healthy and here's to wishing that we can all get back to our regularly scheduled lives asap. Thanks for reading!


	23. Wraiths in the Grain Field

Over the next several days, the remaining students settled back into something of a regular routine.. Breakfast, wilderness hikes with survival classes, lunch, training, gear checks and repairs, then bathing before dinner. Evenings were for lectures and studying. The students had improved, enough so that Geralt and Eskel, who'd promptly made himself at home, had decided that another field trip might be in order. 

Roche liked Eskel. A man of few words, his impressive scars spoke to a life of action. He could see the similar backgrounds between him and Geralt in the way they carried themselves, fought and moved, though Eskel was more prone to observation and thought than the gut instinct Geralt relied on.

There had been rumors coming in from the farmers. Three people had died and the grains were found flattened down in odd swirls and circles around each one, as though they had run themselves to death. Summer had broken in with a long dry wave of heat; Geralt suspected a noonwraith. Eskel agreed.

Eskel taught them how to make moon dust bombs. Regis showed them the proper way to collect Arenaria and prepare spectre oil. They used the Arenaria in the greenhouse, but he also made sure they could identify regions where it might grow. 

Then there came the day they all stood, armed and ready or not, around the flattened stalks of wheat with the sun beating down, waiting.

Not a breath of air stirred. 

Roche felt sweat forming between his shoulder blades and slipping like slick ticklish bugs down his back. He glanced at Anna out of the corner of his eye. A damp tendril of hair stuck to her cheek. He resisted the urge to tuck it back behind her ear. She wore a pair of dark tinted glasses to shield her eyes but otherwise stood calm, head tipped slightly back as if scenting for a breeze. Geralt and Regis both had similar pairs, although the alchemist had stayed at the vineyard. _Should have asked to borrow his._ Squinting at the heat mirages, Roche made a mental note to ask where he might find a pair.

The sound of grass rustling rushed up towards them, eddying around and dying off. Pol looked over his shoulder, Lissette frowned, a few others shifted, nerves growing.

The air hadn't moved. If anything, it became heavier, as if the sun had sucked the breath from their lungs. Visible just over the fields, the river wet a sluggish green trail of duckweed and algae in its bed, mostly banks now as the water was at a record low. Farmers and fishermen alike lamented the lack of rain from every tavern and inn and cracked earth crossroads.  
“It's here.” Eskel announced, rather unnecessarily. 

“Alright, Lissette, Pol, Corbin, you know what to do, Get to it.” Geralt gestured for them to get started.

Roche, Eskel, Anna, and Geralt stepped back to give them room. 

The wraith appeared, shimmering and shrieking beneath the high noon sun. She whirled and dove at Pol, who sidestepped cleanly and cut with a blade well treated in spectre oil. 

The wraith's voice pitched from a tone meant to frighten to one of pain and outrage. She changed direction, whipping towards Lissette so fast that as she sped past, the woman's hair was tossed as if by the wind, only to vanish before being struck. 

Lissette tossed out a bomb, drenching in the area in silver glitter. The wraith wailed again, becoming corporeal once more. Pol caught it with a well placed shot, silver tipped bolt ripping into its whirling, tattered shape.

The heat intensified, the sun baking down. Roche split his attention between watching the students and watching his cohorts. Anna and Eskel were exchanging commentary while Geralt's attention seemed wholly on the fight. Mid sentence, Anna stopped and glanced behind her her. Following her gaze, Roche didn't see anything.

“Anna? What is it?” Eskel prompted.

Anna was frowning. She held up a hand for them to be quiet. 

Off on the far side of the field, a series of ripples like wind, but not, pressed through the grain. Eskel squinted at the spot.

The sunlight seemed to dim. Geralt reached back to rest one hand on the hilt of his silver blade.

“That's not the only wraith!” Anna yelled. “Behind us!”

Geralt and Eskel both had their blades in hand before Roche could finish drawing his. _Damn witcher reflexes_.

Someone tossed him a vial of spectre oil and while the students finished up with the first wraith, the cries and wails of six more filled the air. 

The battle was joined. Sweat stung his eyes and blurred his vision. Cursing, he dodged as a wraith swiped at him from one side while another rushed up from the front. 

Eskel and Geralt, tag teaming one, had it downed already. Yrden signs glowed eerily in the dirt. The smell of magic, hot trampled earth, and broken dry stems rose as the the students regrouped. 

The howling wail of another wraith marked its defeat. Pol grimaced and turned his attention to the next one.  
Lissette threw herself into a roll, pitched so that she cleared an unused yrden, drawing a wraith into it as it chased her through. Geralt spun and whipped his silver blade through it three times fast before rushing away to deal with another and leaving Lissette to regain her feet and finish it off with a series of final blows. 

In a strange sort of wild, darkly intense high summer dance, the wraiths were cornered, rounded up, trapped and finished off. Bodies whirled and pirouetted, silver blades flashed in the sunlight, moondust floated in the air, coating witchers, students, and wraiths alike. 

When it was done, seven men and women stood around, sweating and panting in the stifling heat, surveying the trampled expanse of grain. 

“Well done, everyone.” Geralt sheathed his blade when no further threats presented themselves. “Let's collect our pay and get back to the house.”

“Wait..” Pol pulled his glasses of and tried to use his shirt tail to mop the sweat from his face before setting them back on his nose and continuing. “We only contracted for one wraith. There were seven. So...can we renegotiate? It's not fair if we're only paid for one.” 

“Ah, the crux of the life.” Eskel sighed and shook his head. “Have you told them, yet?”

“Was getting to that.” Geralt grumped.

“What is it? I'm missing something aren't I?” Pol pushed his glasses back up his sweaty nose. They immediately slid back down. 

“Witchers get ripped off a lot.” Geralt admitted. “Some of it is intentional. Cheap governors and aldersmen too often love their coin more than the lives of their people and certainly more than the life of one witcher or hired monster slayer.”

“It's also that sometimes our contracts are hard to define.” Eskel softened the news somewhat. “Like today. The contract you accepted wasn't wrong, as far as it was known at the time. You can't always account for new information discovered after agreeing.”

“That's not fair!” Lissette pulled off her gloves and tried to fan herself with them before giving up and sticking them in her belt.

“Look at the bright side, kid.” Roche chimed in. “When we go to collect, there will be seven of us, all armed and supporting the same claim. If the owner here tries to weasel out of a fair pay increase, well, sometimes letting them imagine the consequences of that decision can help enlighten even the stingiest of purses.”

“Spoken like a true mercenary.” Anna shook her head. “Save that kind o' posturing for those that try to cheat on purpose. I say we give this one a chance to make us a better offer before we go alienating even more folks.” 

“Anna's idea is a better one.” Geralt agreed. “I've got enough enemies and people concerned over what I might be teaching you lot without adding strong-arming payments to the list of reasons they might seek to shut us down.”

“Ah, you're no fun. It was just an idea, is all.” Roche grumbled. 

They trudged wearily up to the manor house to collect their pay. The horizon and the pale gravel drive shimmered in the heat. Roche wanted to get back to the cool interiors of Corvo Bianco, get something cold to drink, maybe roll his pant legs up and go wading in the little brook that still trickled down the rocks behind the house. Maybe ask Anna if she wanted to join him. 

When they returned, however, it was to find Barnabas-Basil with a waiting message for them. More woodsmen had gone missing and there was now no sign of the two students sent out to help.

Sam and Duval were missing.


	24. Cast Shadows

“Hurry yourself up, V. We haven't got all day!” Anna had forged ahead, hiking down the logging trail in the direction they'd been tipped to by the loggers, the sound of saws and shouting fading away behind them as the deep humid shadow beneath the canopy grew, humming with clouds of insects and warbles of liquid birdsong. 

“Speak for yourself. I don't aim to camp out here in this bug cloud once the sun goes down, but it won't be the worst place I've stayed, either. Afraid of the dark, McCready?”

“Don't bestir yourself. Somethings gone arseways and I want to find out what before those boys get themselves into something they can't get out of. Assuming we're not already too late. If there are signs about, I don't want to miss em'. Although it might be that whatever came for them is a creature only comes out after dark. We may not have a choice.”

“Agreed.” Roche had only caught about three quarters of what she had just rattled off. 

He'd been struggling to keep up since they'd left the city. In amongst stone buildings and the confines of alleyways and narrow cobbled streets, Anna's sense of direction was next to useless. She couldn't tell one intersection from another. But once they hit the dirt roads, she'd taken a deep breath of air, gotten her bearings, and headed off in pursuit as though she nearly knew exactly where she was going. Roche couldn't figure it. It wasn't as if the directions had changed. But she seemed to have more confidence out in nature.

She came to a stop so suddenly that Roche ran into her. 

“Sorry.” He grunted, a little breathless. 

“Hush.” She was looking at the trail ahead. Cart tracks, a few days old if he was to guess, ran through the dirt and headed off into the trees. But that wasn't what had Anna's attention.

Roche realized belatedly that the birdsong had stopped. Even the bugs seemed to have vanished. The expectant silence was a held breath. But for what?

Then he saw her.

A woman. Standing in the road. She was wearing a dress totally unsuited to hiking into the woods. She had a bonnet on despite the warmth and her face was in deep shadow. She carried a basket full of mushrooms.

“Who are ye and where are ye headed?” Anna called out.

“Well, that was rude.” Roche muttered.

“Do you think she's up to any good all the way out here? Something's wrong, V.”

“That doesn't mean it's her.”

“Begging your pardon, good folks.” The woman's voice was lilting and a bit shaky sounding, as if she were afraid. “But might you direct me back towards the city? I seem to have gotten lost and my guard abandoned me hours ago.”

“Lost? How'd you come to be here in the first place?” Anna sounded skeptical.

“I was harvesting mushrooms.” She lifted the basket. “The best ones grow in the deep shade of the old growth and with the logging activity, well , its getting harder to find them. I've never gone this far into the woods before and I've been wandering for hours. Please, I'm ever so tired and ready to go home if only you could point me in the right direction.”

“Of course.” Roche answered, his voice falling oddly flat in the stillness. “We would have a poor reputation indeed if we turned down someone in need of assistance. Allow us to see you safely home.”

“Go way outta that!” Anna snorted and shook her head. “We haven't got the time. Just give her her heading and she'll be alright to find her own way.”

“Anna, we can't leave her here when we think it might be dangerous. We don't know what happened to the boys. We still don't really know what happened to the loggers. I'm not leaving her to find her own way.”

Anna heaved a disgusted sigh. 

“Fine then. Have it your way. You will in any event. See her home if you must. But come straight back because I'm going on ahead. You'll have to catch up to me where ever I camp.”

“Fine! Stubborn wench! Get yourself lost just like she was. I'll come back and rescue you, too. But you head the hell out of here if you run across anything. Don't try and face it yourself. Geralt sent the both of us. I'll see you in a few hours.”

Vernon made suitably apologetic excuses to the lady and offered her his arm. They set off back down the trail in the direction he and Anna had just come from. 

She kept on on the direction they had been heading in.

A few minutes after they'd parted, birds began singing again. Anna cocked her head and listened. It wasn't the same one they'd head before, she was sure. The sense that something was wrong was growing steadily, making her jumpy and tense when she ought to have been confidant and observing the trail ahead. What was it to her that some daft noble woman had got her partner wrapped around her little finger in the span of a moment. Roche was not the kind of man who settled on one woman. That much was more than evident in his background and his manner. So why did it bother her so much? Anna scowled and kicked a twig out of her path. 

It wasn't as if she and V were all that close. She hadn't told him about herself more than just surface details, things anyone might know. There were still times when she didn't even like the man. But this still felt like a violation of trust in some way and she couldn't work it out. 

Her ex husband had made her feel like this. Maybe that was it. Not knowing where she stood in his esteem. If he cared or respected her at all. It worried at her like...like....wait. She shifted one foot uncomfortably. There was gravel in her boot.

“Well, that's not going to improve my mood.” Huffing out a frustrated sigh, Anna sat down on a log and pulled off the offending boot, dumping out the little bits of stone. She checked the tread while she was at it, noting the prints she'd left in the soft loam. 

The only prints.

If that woman had been out here....Anna hauled her boot back on, fastening it in a hurry. She was nowhere near the tracker that Duval was, but surely here should have been some sign that soebody else had been about the area.

Mushrooms. She said she was collecting them....

Anna knew a fair few things about mushrooms. _What sort was she after, our strange bird._

There were lichens on the fallen bracken. Some large shelf fungus growing up the trunks...and....aha! There was a clump of...._No, that couldn't be right. Those weren't edible_. In fact, they looked like...Anna picked on and sniffed at it to be sure. A slightly bitter fishy odor.

Poisonous.

What sort of woman appeared in the woods with no sign of existing anywhere nearby earlier, charmed V faster than you could spit, and had a basket of poisonous mushrooms?

_Just because she doesn't look monstrous, doesn't mean she isn't_. And if Sam and Duval had run across her...they might have been caught just as unawares. If not, then maybe this 'woman' might have some ideas about what else was out here.

Because if V wasn't in trouble, then she was a nanny goat.

Anna checked the angle of the sun slanting through the canopy. If she shifted and ran for it, she could be back in the city much faster. She took the shortest cut, a straight line as the crow flew back towards the city. Her instincts hadn't steered her wrong yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still working to finish this. I have chapters written all out of order though, so I'm trying to come up with 'bridge' pieces that will help me blend those in to the overall storyline.  
And I've been back at work full time so that's eating into my schedule. Hope you all are staying as safe and sane as circumstances allow. Thanks for your patience and for reading!


	25. Spinning Sideways

_The wine she had offered him had been sour with an acidic bite to it that set his teeth on edge. _

It hadn't occurred to him until too late to wonder if it wasn't supposed to taste like that.

"There now, that's much better, isn't it."

Roche's limbs felt heavy. Couldn't reach the glass he'd just set down, his fingers barely twitching. Sound and light were strange concepts, twisting around him and filtered as though he were underwater before returning in sludge slow, muted tones. It was odd, but what stood out to him at that moment was the furtive motion of a mouse scuttling along the baseboard at the far side of the pantry. The light glinted off soft fur, bristly whiskers, and beady black eyes. 

_Poison_. The bitch had drugged him.

"By now you should find it hard to move." She was circling around behind his chair, fingernails scraping, coy and horrid, across his shoulder, over the back of his neck. His skin crawled. "Just relax. Struggling won't work and all that tension just makes the pain worse. It affects the flavor."

He shuddered, wanting to move away, to be anywhere else. Whatever she'd dosed him with, it seemed more paralytic than numbing. He wished it were otherwise. He did _not_ want this woman touching him.

She stepped in front of him again, a thin sliver of a blade in her hand. 

"Some of my kind will drink anything, even ripping in with their bare teeth. So uncivilized. I myself prefer a more refined technique." She took one of his hands in hers, turning it over so his palm faced up. She rolled his sleeve back to expose his forearm, stroking her fingers up and down until the veins in his wrist stood out clearly. Then she moved over to his other arm and repeated the process. 

Roche couldn't even clench a fist. 

She hummed a little tune as she cut, quick and deep, into his flesh. A goblet held underneath caught the hot stream of blood that ran down. She dipped a finger in and sucked it clean, tasting him. 

"Hm. A bit bitter, almost piquant. You're not as coveted as the Witcher, of course. Few, if any, can claim to have sampled that. It's a bit like our Sangrial, you see. But you? You'll do nicely. I do prefer a more mature vintage."

He tuned out what she was saying._ A vampire_. He had walked right into the home of a vampire. He couldn't move and she was set on keeping him that way. Roche had experienced blood loss before. He had some time before it became lethal....he tried to focus on what Geralt had taught about vampires. Types. He needed to figure out which type she was to avoid specific attacks. He was having trouble remembering which ones were which. Silver would help. Something about moondust...He needed to come up with a plan so when the drug wore off...

First goblets filled, she set pitchers down. Then she left the room, ducking through the curtain to the where? A parlor? Another floor? Roche could hear footsteps. Voices. Multiple conversations and motion. She had company. Had they been here the whole time?

She returned; checked the level of the pitchers; slapped him twice, hard. Apparently to jolt his heart rate up and keep his blood moving. Then left again.

Dizziness swept his thoughts aside. _Too soon, wasn't it?_ Unless the drug helped in that regard. Although he recalled hearing that alcohol also thinned the blood. Regis would know if that were true...he could ask.......Maybe he really should try harder to quit.

His fingers felt cold. Forearms too, come to think of it. _Not good_. He tried to wiggle his toes, his fingers, anything. One pinky twitched. Maybe. Maybe he had imagined it. 

Conversation and laughter drifted from the adjoining room. 

His legs were somewhere far off, unfeeling. _Frostbite had felt a bit like this, the drifting sensation that grew into a kind of false killing warmth._

She returned twice more, checking the levels. The last time, she was satisfied. She removed them, added little vials of something, mixed it all up, and set one on the counter and took the other one away. 

Not going to make it out this time. _Should've listened to Anna._

_Anna. Who didn't know this woman was a vampire....._He tried to move again. Nothing. His whole body was cold and he was tired. So very tired.

He had no idea what time it was. He was shivering, slow and faint, barely conscious now. 

Eventually, her guests left and she returned. Roche, who had passed out, came to when a soft rap sounded at the door. She opened it to admit a plain man in a dark suit of clothes. 

"Be a dear and dump him with the others. We can't have that Witcher poking around." She motioned to the serving man to remove Roche's motionless pale form. He heard the clink of coins being handed over as he was lifted bodily and dragged from the chair, out the rear door, where he was dumped onto a cart and covered with a tarp and the rest of the household trash.

By the time the cart got underway, he was no longer aware of anything.


	26. Into the Jaws part I

Anna stopped when she saw the dark splotch on the vines next to the carriage house gate.

It was blood. 

"I'm sorry, can I help you? You appear to be lost." A woman in a pretty but demure dress with a shawl wrapped around her bony shoulders was approaching from the porch. She wasn't the same woman from the woods. Even so, there was something familiar about her and Anna struggled to recall where she might have seen this one before.

There was something off about her; the way she moved. Her expression was too earnest. And when she got close...her scent was strange. Every sense Anna had was screaming at her to run.  
She shifted her feet, braced to do just that if need be. But she had to know if the house was clear first. There had been tracks of a cart; it might be nothing. But she she wouldn't know if she didn't check the house first. And that meant she needed to deal with this woman. 

"I'm not lost; but mayhap you can help me find someone? A man; about yay tall with brown hair and brown eyes. Would've been armed. Might've come across as rude?"

"Oh. Well, no, no one like that here. I had some friends over for drinks this evening and they've only just left; perhaps they saw your man. If you walk toward the city, you might catch them."

The wind shifted. Anna caught scent of the woman's breath.

Blood.

Vernon Roche's blood.

Something must have shown in the expression on her face because the woman dropped back a step, similarly braced to fight or flee.

"Where is he?"

"I think you had better leave. I'm not alone here. Saul?! Saul, get out here, now!"

A giant of a man with a receding blond ponytail and the build of a knight slammed out through the door. He carried a two handed blade that might have stood taller than Anna herself.

"What's all this ruckus? If Edwyna says you'll be off, then off you'll go. You have til the count of three to clear the premises or my sword'll clear you. One..."

Anna ignored him, her focus on Edwyna. "You haven't seen him, but you've been drinking his blood?"

Edwyna froze, eyes wide. She looked Anna over.

"You're no Witcher. What are you?"

"Two...." The blade swung down into guard.

"Where.Is.He." The words came out lower, rougher, from between teeth clenched so tightly, the tendons in Anna's jaw creaked.

Saul was advancing on her from across the lawn. 

Edwyna was shifting, ever so slightly. Her nails elongated, her shape stretched. Fangs became apparent.  
The blood scent increased. _Vampire._

Anna felt a wave of white hot rage wash red into her vision. She screamed out her anger and pain and fear until the sound became a roar that drowned out even the blood hammering in her ears. Dropping to her hands and knees, she screamed as bones cracked and reshaped, as fur grew. The claws. Teeth. 

Her berserker form, with her always but refined by Geralt's advice and training, still a thing she had feared to unleash. 

Until now. This time, she welcomed it. 

Edwyna hissed and swiped across her nose before darting to one side. 

Saul yelled and charged in. 

An effortless swat of her paw, claws sank through flesh and hooked into armor like a fork. Saul went flying back to crash into the side of the house with half his face torn loose . He did not get back up. 

Edwyna advanced with a shriek; Anna held her ground. Long claws struck out but the vampire was faster; a counter strike sent tufts of fur flying, long talons finding flesh beneath. 

Anna roared; the injury only solidifying her rage. 

Another strike and another, Edwyna was far more dexterous in her natural shape and used it to every advantage. Then, she disappeared, invoking her natural camouflage ability. Her attacks on Anna redoubled. 

Anna charged, only to have the vampire sidestep. She rent with her claws only to rip the shrubbery, the lawn, rake marks across the siding. She snapped her jaws on thin air. 

Back and forth across the lawn and drive they warred, planters knocked over, chunks of grass torn up. Edwyna gained confidence with every strike, no matter how minor. Anna roared, huffed and snuffled about in a blind frenzy. 

At some point during the fight; Anna's rage began to fade. She slowed. Regained her mind. And noticed that the dirt spilling from the large planter on the steps had several footprints in it. On the next pass, she deliberately knocked into another planter, using her paws to tear up the dirt, scatter it across the yard, the drive. A veritable tantrum of ursine destruction. 

Edwyna, overconfident in her invisibility, strayed too near to watch. She got pelted with dirt, weeds and bits of grass sticking in her hair. 

Even so, it was was by the slimmest chance that one more seemingly wild bear paw swat found its target and Edwyna went down. Blood spattered across the drive. The fresh scent further enraged both women. A shriek of pain and indignation confirmed the vampires location.

Anna's claws and teeth may not have been silver, but they didn't need to be. Enough damage was inflicted to leave parts of the unfortunate bruxa scattered across the lawn. Without silver, the kill wasn't true; Edwyna could eventually regenerate, but that suited Anna well enough. All she had really needed was time. 

With the vampire out of her way, Anna surged up the stairs and knocked the door in, snuffling along the floor as she picked up Roche's trail. 

He was no longer in the house....which meant...the wagon on whose tracks his scent stopped. The wagon that had a head start to an as yet unknown destination. The only question remained; go after or go back to get help? Time. That was the constraint. How much did he have left? How much did she?

Shaking and snarling, Anna paced, blood drooling from her jaws. Her fur was matted and wet in several places but the worse matter was that she would not be able to hold to her bear shape forever. An hour? Two? She had never attempted that long. Once the shape was gone, she would fall into an exhausted stupor.

The downsides to being a berserker were many. But for the moment, she had strength and speed and enhanced senses the bear shape brought. It would have to be enough.

Anna ran, nose to the ground, ignoring the barking of dogs or the cries of alarm from passersby; shocked to see a smallish blonde bear running down the lane.

She was too busy following the fading trail left by a wagon over the cobbles.

Eventually, it veered away from the city. Buildings thinned out into fields. First tilled, then wild. The cobbled lane became dirt. Then the trail turned off into the woods; a logging road. That road connected to another. Then another. 

Anna stopped. She lifted her head, checking around to make sure the direction was correct. The necrophages. This was where they had seen signs of necrophages earlier. Before they had spotted the woman in the lane. 

They had all thought it odd when the hunters had come in with that particular contract. What would draw so many to such a remote location? But if a vampire was dumping bodies....

They merely hadn't gone far enough. 

Anna shook her fur out, huffed loudly to warn away the pack of wolves she had scented circling nearby, and took off running once more, broad paws eating up the distance.


	27. Chapter 27

Sam hit the ground hard. Rolling, he managed to get to his hands and knees, fighting against the burning pain of air having been knocked out of his lungs. The feeling didn't fade. The air had a bitter tang to it that coated his tongue and caught in the back of his throat and left him feeling short of breath even after he got to his feet. 

Gazing around, one hand on the hilt of his sword, he saw....ruin. That was only word for what surrounded him. Crumbled heaps of slag as far as he could see. Gray parched earth. Dead scrub clinging in the cracks of stone foundations. Shards of broken glass reflected the odd greenish half light. Off in the distance, the bleached bones of something enormous stuck up out of the earth. 

_Where is this?!_

Sam had never heard of a place like this before. They certainly weren't in Toussaint any longer. It had been the dark of night and no one needed a portal for short distances. Portals were too costly and time consuming to build. So, they could have been transported anywhere in the world. Or another world entirely. Sam's stomach cramped at that thought. Geralt's stories about portal hopping came to mind and he combed through them for hints of practical advice beyond _don't_. Geralt, of course, had had an elven expert with him. Something about the connections not being linear anymore...Glancing behind him, Sam saw the portal had shut down. _Trapped? _

A cry of pain stopped the ensuing panic from taking him over entirely. Duval!

He needed to find Duval and then figure out how to avoid whatever that monster was that had come through in the first place. After that, they could work on a plan to get back. Assuming no one came to find them before that. And maybe someone would need to. If the portals no longer connected the way they once had, there was no guarantee that going back through this one would put them back where they had started. It might only serve to get them even more hopelessly lost. He also recalled another of the witcher's warnings; that some of the portals had been destroyed and now rested in pieces or under water, or on worlds that no longer had atmosphere, or were so hostile as to mean immediate death.

_No going back, either way._

Drawing his blade, he hurried, low and cautious, towards the sound that seemed to have come from a hollowed shell of what might once have been a large building, hoping against hope that what he had heard had even been Duval.


	28. Chapter 28

Vernon Roche came to again when he was dumped. Someone muttered to themself as they went through his pockets, taking his coins and his flask. The cart was then upended. 

He slid, then tumbled, boneless and uncoordinated, out of the tipped wagon to land on something too soft and yielding to be dirt, but with harder points that jabbed into him here and there with enough force to bruise. 

The odor tipped him off. A flock of ravens, disturbed from their carrion picking, took off with a great flapping of wings and raucous offended noises. 

Corpse rot. The gaseous decompositive emissions of those human and not. His nightmare, ignoble death in a mass grave, was his reality. He might have choked or fought or screamed or vomited or anything, really, if it hadn't meant giving away the fact that he wasn't quite all dead yet to his dumper. 

The man in the dark frock coat grumbled something about 'poor sods' and took a swig out of Roche's flask. Then he and his wagon turned and began the long trek back to the city.

Roche tried to move. The poison had worn off, finally. But it didn't make much difference. He was limp; weaker than a newborn kitten. Struggling to try and sit up only enhanced the reek rising from the pile of corpses he'd fallen in. He wallowed in death and felt something wet followed by a ticklishness and made the mistake of looking; maggots were swarming over his hands were he'd grabbed at...what, an arm? A leg? Some part of someone nearby to try and get the leverage to start crawling out. 

_Why bother?_

The treacherous question arose once more.

What did he have to live for? No family. No friends. No fight he was needed for. Didn't he, a murderer by some counts, a traitor by others, a regicide, and a son of whore, deserve this fate? There were those who would cheer to see him in this present hell, who had no doubt wished this and worse upon him.

It was getting dark. He felt the shadows pressing against his closed eyelids.

Somewhere out around the pit, he heard the necrophages stirring, hungry and curious as to this new addition to their feast. She'd taken his sword. His dagger. His ability to defend himself. His blood. His dignity. He tried to turn from despair to anger; something to heat himself up to action. A desire for vengeance. _Something. Anything. _

Nothing. 

He was so tired. Tired of fighting only to wind up in an even worse place upon each failing, each defeat. Hell must surely be his next stop. Though how it could be worse than this, he wasn't eager to learn.

The necrophages descended into the pit, rummaging, gobbling, fighting over every scrap despite no shortage of carrion. A pack of devourers chased after a greater rotfiend, driving it away from the torso it had managed to tear loose from the heap. Cornering it, they attacked only to be driven back when it exploded. Another scuffle broke out as more helped themselves to those remains. 

Ghouls rearranged the bodies in smaller heaps; creating places to bed down come dawn in the vary stuff they were eating. A graveir busy munching on bones was mounted by another who rutted furiously without the first one even pausing in its eating or giving any sign at all that it even noticed. 

The ravens and vultures, having retreated to the trees for the night, thokked, hissed, and shuffled in sleepy derisive commentary at the ruckus going on below them.

Vernon Roche lay back, watched them approach, and waited. He wondered how much it would hurt and knew he would probably scream.

The ghoul nosing around him noticed it first. It lifted its head, sniffed the air, and let out a low hissing sound that caught the attention of the others. It stepped right on Roche as it sidled around and eased up the other side of the pit. 

Some backed away, the weaker sorts. Others went right on eating, fighting, mating, whatever they had been doing, as if nothing was amiss.

When Roche first heard it, it sent a shiver though him. He thought it was the wind. Although the trees hadn't moved enough, he was dying and not tracking anything well enough to notice. It was a loud, long noise. Must be the wind.

He did notice the bear, however. He couldn't not have, as it landed in the pit right over him and with a deafening roar, began smacking necroghages clear up and out of the pit. A devourer flew away to smash into a tree trunk; impact detonating it. That took out a small host of lesser creatures nearby. Weaker phages fled, fearing the presence of this unknown stronger predator. The ravens took off, seeking quieter trees.

Anna made quick work of the scavengers and carrion eaters; clearing a path. 

The next thing Roche knew, the bruin had him in its jaws and half carried, half dragged him up the sides of the pit, claws scrabbling in the dirt. Then he was dropped on his side in the grass. He lay still while the smallish, blood crusted bear was nosing at his wrists and face and making anxious huffing noises. For some reason, he imagined the smelled of honeysuckle beneath the reek of death and decay...

He did the only rational thing one could do in such a situation; he passed out again.

"Roche?" Something smacked against his face. "Come on, you eejit."

"V?" Another smack. "Don't you go dying on me now, you thrice-cursed maggot chewed arsehole."

"McCready?" He blinked, slow and still dying. "Anna....look out..there's a bear. Anna...you have to...."

_How was she here? Where was here, anyway? The scent of grass and honeysuckle, trees overhead, starry sky. And...was she naked? _They were both dead, then. Had to be; they were both dead and this was some weird understanding his brain was trying to make out of purgatory or the like before they got separated into whatever afterlives awaited them.__

_ __ _

_ __ _

"Ah! You're not dead!" She grabbed the back of his head, leaned in and kissed him, her mouth fever hot and all to brief against his. He felt a rush of...Something. _That might've been worth staying alive for....too bad it's too late..._

Consciousness faded out again and she had to smack him awake all over again.

By the time Regis found them, they were staggering together down the logging road, so slow as to make a snail appear downright hyperactive. Anna was fighting to stay conscious by then as well, her injuries catching up as the last of her berserker energy burnt off, leaving her exhausted and shivering. 

The raven flew from his shoulder to rejoin its brethren as he shifted form to something which would allow him to carry them both back to the estate far faster. 

Even so, he hoped it would not be too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....still chipping away at this. *sigh* *headdesks*


End file.
